


Disintegration

by Peaterparker



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Dreamscapes, Dreamsharing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Marijuana, Multi, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Tags to be updated as we go, The Turtle CAN Help Us (IT), Therapy, Visions in dreams, cause we all know that should be a tag, except that it takes a minute for Eddie to come back to life, typical ptsd from child eating alien clown
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:48:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23414821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peaterparker/pseuds/Peaterparker
Summary: It started when Eddie's phone got shut off, his social media profiles deleted and Myra calling to tell him that she didn't want the reminders. The dreams of the grey wolf, of Eddie being impaled above him, of getting on a stage and being It's puppet.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 28
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is a small snippet of stuff I've already wrote, if you think you'd like to read more please leave a comment saying so!! I'm distracting myself from the other wips with this and need some kind of validation that it's not complete shit :)

It started when Eddie’s phone got shut off, numbers thrown into the endless void of unused numbers awaiting their turn in the queue to be given to someone else. Richie was… fine. Until then. He was handling his grief quietly, the suffering in silence cliche he often made jokes about but never put enough introspection to realize boxed him in on all sides. So what if he called Eddie’s phone three times in two days? No one but the phone company and Richie knew about that, despite Beverly’s increasingly saddened looks. 

Richie had a therapist. For two months, which was a lot longer than he had expected to have stayed in that overly cushioned chair in an office that faced out over the beach with a woman who thought Richie needed to be taken more seriously. Turns out being told that coping through humor five times every visit really burns the end of your patience rope. He knows he’s not coping healthily enough, but he’s still fucking coping. Hearing Eddie’s voice was helping. 

Myra calls every other week. It’s his least favorite day, the second Friday that he sits down and watches her name pop up on his blank screen while he’s drinking his third handle of the day and feels like his stomach is making desperate measures to escape his body. They weren’t fucking friends. Not even friendly. She hated Richie for knowing the Real Eddie and he hated her for getting the Eddie He Couldn’t Have. 

“I’m turning off his phone next week.” She said, soft sobs and sniffles echoing through Richie’s empty living room. “I know- I know you keep calling it. I got the bill today and I can’t….” She takes a deep breath before pressing on. “I can’t have that reminder anymore, Richard.” 

“It’s almost been a year, Richard.” Myra says, pleadingly, but Richie can only fucking sigh.

He knew this was coming, he’d had a feeling, a preparation for the worst case scenario. 

“It’s… It’s okay, Myra. You, uh, you gotta get your own peace with this, right?” He huffs a fake breath of a laugh. “It was just the only way I could… could hear him again.” 

So that was the end of that conversation, quick excuses to stop acknowledging the others’ existence. Eddie’s phone got shut off and his Facebook had been deleted. Myra didn’t say anything about the social media profiles, it slapped Richie harder than he thought losing everything at this point would. 

He tells Bev, the first time.

“God, I just wish it was fucking me instead of him!” He shouts to the ceiling of his bedroom and Bev sighs over the phone.

“Honey, you know that--”

“It’s called Survivor’s Guilt.” Ben says quietly. “You’re not the only one. Call Mike sometime, Richie. It’d be good for both of you.” 

The levels to this monstrous shit ass trauma keep astounding him too. The four other people that know exactly what is going on with him but still don’t know his secret. He doesn’t call Mike. He doesn’t tell Bev again, or the third time, or the fiftieth. 

“I loved him.” Richie whispers to himself, staring at his reflection in the mirror and daring himself to crack open. “I love him, still.” His voice is stronger with that fact. 

He ruins it by thinking if Myra has to affirm herself the same way. Only she gets to be more in the right when she tells herself that Eddie loved her. Richie has childhood memories of puppy love, a few circumstances where the seven of them told each other they loved them but never a one on one type of confession. 

He has Eddie’s bags from the townhouse. They’re in the guest room, placed on the end of the mattress as if Eddie was visiting. Richie thinks he did this to himself to create more suffering, heard his therapist’s voice echoing behind his right ear that this wasn’t healthy coping. He left the room before he could touch the bag, knowing he wouldn’t be able to leave for hours if he had even so much as grazed it. 

His dreams never stray, always the same nightmare of Eddie above him with blood pouring from his mouth and the blood from his chest pooling around Richie. Sometimes they have longer conversations than they truly did, sometimes it was a wolf instead of It chasing after them. Sometimes Richie even remembers them after waking up in a panic and crying until the sun rises. 

Sometimes they add into contextual evidence that something isn’t fucking right. 

Most times he thinks he’s finally gone off the fucking deep end and needs someone to reel him back in by the brains he still has left. He can imagine the pitiful looks the other Losers would give him if he even so much as said anything about nightmares, can hear the patronising tones in their voices when they try to gently break it down to him that Eddie really isn’t fucking coming back. 

Richie just does what he knows best; he makes a fucking joke. Without knowing who was sitting in the crowd.

“So, a year ago I went to my hometown in bumfuck Maine.” A few singular cheers in the crowd and Richie lifts an eyebrow in clear judgement. “Wow, they really do come from all over. If I go missing after this show I want it known on very public record that those fucks were the ones to do it.” The crowd laughs, eats up his smile and how he points to different sections as he makes his statements and one liners. 

“So a year ago I went home and the craziest thing happened. And I know what you’re thinking, it’s Maine, how fucking crazy could it have been. Well, I met up with my middle school best friends. There were seven of us and only six, myself included, had shown up to this fucking Chinese food place that was right smack in the middle of town. I’m looking at their faces and I’m realizing that for twenty seven years I forgot these people existed.” 

The crowd chuckles, anxious to see where this is obviously going. Richie doesn’t let himself get too weird, can’t bring up the child eating alien clown for terribly obvious reasons. The first of those reasons being the absolute shitfest it was trying to clean up his press after his mental fucking breakdown where he forgot his own name. 

“And it was a lot like, going to the grocery store and seeing a popular kid from high school that turned out to not be shit? You know, but, reverse. I showed up, a famous comedian fresh off a mental breakdown and they’re… all fucking hot.” The crowd laughed louder now so he waved a hand up and down at himself. “I mean, look, I know I’m not the sexiest man of 2017, will probably never qualify for sexiest man alive. I was a nerdy ass loser from Maine, there can only be so many miracles worked for me.

“Big Bill, which is Bill Denbrough by the fucking way--” A few cheers and he smiles big out to the crowd, effortless enthusiam for his friend jumping through him. “Yeah, yeah, it’s MY show people, calm down.” He jokes. “Big Billy became a Big Time Author. Beverly Marsh is The Fashionista. Ben builds the Most Intricate and Extreme Things in all architects currently. Mike might’ve been a historian with the public library but he looks like the fuckin’ Old Spice guy so he’s still winning in life. And then there was Eddie. Little ol’ Eddie Spaghetti. 

“Eddie was always a fucking riot. He spit venom like no one else ever could, and with my childhood nickname of Trashmouth you can already begin to understand that that was a Thing for Eddie and I. He became a Risk Analyst. Which, honestly speaking, was perfect for him. That little fucker knew the statistics of every fatal thing that could happen no matter how obscure it fucking was. 

“God, I loved that fucking shit head.” He cuts out, wipes a hand across his face to recompose himself. 

The next morning was hell, the hangover beating behind his eyes and his mouth so fucking dry. He arose from bed to drink his weight in water and coffee only to find Bev sitting at his kitchen table, empty bottles organized along the kitchen counters and her head in her hands. 

“You promised to say something when it got bad again, Rich.” She whispers, there’s no accusatory or patronising tone, just a deep sadness. 

“It never got better to begin with.” Richie counters. “Can’t get bad again if it never changed.” 

“Worse, then.” Bev says. “I know that you know we’re all here for you. Patty and Stan have been asking about you. He understands why you haven’t called him back, Richie, but I think he needs you as much as you need him.” 

Richie just turns to make the coffee instead, moving empty bottles out of his way as he goes. Stan hadn’t been the most… comforting person to talk to with the reminder of how he took himself off the board ever present. Richie considers leveling the playing field often, dreams of offering his life up in order to bring Eddie back. Stan hadn’t listened to Richie’s excuses and instead cut his bullshit. The pushing and pulling of boundaries made Richie lose his shit too many times on his oldest friend and he eventually just stopped answering the calls. 

It felt like Stan had blamed him, too. 

They’re quiet over their coffee cups, a space where they used to talk about their Deadlights dreams and the contrast of reality to their experiences instead filled with a silence full of tension. 

“Stan wanted me to pass a message along. He said that the black oak tree is the highest in the forest and the wolf won’t find you there.” 

Richie dropped his cup, couldn’t feel it shatter on the floor around his feet. 

So, not just bullshit trauma dreams then. 

“I know your love for Eddie was different than how we loved him but please don’t let that stop you from reaching out to us, honey.” She wiped tears from her nose and stood to grab a roll of paper towels that she brought over with a few groceries almost two weeks ago to clean the coffee from the floor. 

“You know?” He asks quietly, not quiet enough to keep the panic from leaking through. 

“Rich.” She sighs. “If you didn’t love him I’d be concerned.” 

“It’s so fucking hard, Bev, I almost wish I could forget again.” He knows that she knows exactly what he means. He’d never lose any of this ever again, he’d die before he gave up the memories of them as kids and together again as adults. He clings so tightly to these memories that there’s no fucking way he could ever forget again. But that doesn’t dim the pain any, either. 

“Please just call Stan.” She holds his face in her hands and stares directly into his eyes. “And wear your new glasses, retire these ones.” Richie only wears the cracked ones at home, anyways, not where anyone can see him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again :^)
> 
> another tall glass of depression, be warned before you chug. 
> 
> we love and appreciate Stanley Uris in this house
> 
> also I'm not sympathizing with Myra at all, I just think the kind of complications she brings are interesting and thinking about Richie and Myra having like an Eddie Anonymous phone call every so often is so fucking pitiful it hurts and so :) suffering it is :)
> 
> i'm gonna leave this as a completed work because I don't know exactly how many chapters I'm going to add to this especially if I might take it all out and put it into one entire work.

Bev leaves, after making sure he was actually eating anything other than order out and doing laundry, and he feels a little more alone than usual. The bottles lining the kitchen enrage him, he knew he’d been drinking more but didn’t want to pay attention to exactly how much more. Awake and sober were not compatible to him currently. Instead of picking up the half finished handle of whiskey by the sink he loaded his pipe and smoked the last of the weed that he had left. It took the edge off without making him feel terribly sick. 

Myra was calling him, twice in one week how fucking lucky could he be. The first time she had ever called he ignored it for two days. He turned his phone off when she went from calling every half hour to every five minutes. She’d been pissed when he finally answered, snapping at her to shut the fuck up and leave him the fuck alone.

“Where the hell do you get off, Tozier?” She snaps as he sighs a hello. “I saw some videos from last night. Why are you still talking about him?” 

“You don’t have universal rights to him, you know? Technically, I had him before you did if you want this pissing contest.” The anger is unbridled and only half way justifiable. He’d known she would find out, he’d known she’d be mad, he’d still wanted to talk about Eddie. 

“Do you not care for anyone but yourself?” 

“No, see, I did once. But look at where that’s gotten us.” He says it plainly, like he’s unaffected by any of this. He’s fucking rotting inside. 

Myra’s so quiet that Richie tries to remember if he heard the beeping from the call being ended until she finally takes a deep breath in and speaks so gently that Richie didn’t even know she was able to hold this level of calm competence.

“Did you love him?” 

Richie blinks before he answers. “He was my best friend.” 

“No, Richie. Did you love him?” Richie didn’t answer for a long minute. “When you told me… when you told me about Derry I didn’t want to believe that there wasn’t anything about Eddie that I didn’t already know.” That was an understatement about a mile wide. “I didn’t want to think that things like that exist.” Honestly, fucking same. “But your points of view were different from your friends’.” 

“What does that mean?” He chokes out. It was his idea to tell Myra everything. She might have been a total fucking bitch to him, she might’ve made Eddie’s life as perfect as his mother wanted it to have been, but she let them come to the memorial in New York. She let them come into hers and Eddie’s home afterwards, let them see into the life he was leaving behind. 

They didn’t have a perfect marriage, not even in the slightest. Richie broke the news that Eddie was planning on divorcing her before he died and she had only nodded once before she called Richie a bastard. They had three glasses of wine while sitting on the patio set outside of the safe bubble of his friends looking at the pictures in the living room. Richie explained everything about those summers and the missing kids. The clown that fucked their heads up and ruined life as they knew it forever. He explained moving away and forgetting, coming together again and seeing the false positives of the lives they were haunting instead of actually living. 

She kicked them out after that and didn't respond to Richie's messages until three days later when she said she found George Denbrough's missing poster online.

“It means they had more details on the greater troubles and you knew Eddie’s every reaction.” She takes another deep breath. “So, did you love him?” 

The ‘yes’ he chokes out is more of a sob than an actual word and he can hear Myra crying through the phone. She hangs up while he’s trying to control his breathing, to try to find the words to tell Myra that it wasn’t how she thought it was but that would be a lie, wouldn’t it? 

_Only dirty boys tell dirty lies, Richie._

__The Losers don’t know that he’s still in conversations with Myra. They thought it dropped off after the memorial, then again after they had dinner on Eddie’s birthday. Bill said it was kinda weird, the two of them talking as often as they did. Richie agreed, it was totally fucking weird. He never expected Myra to be someone that he humanized after villainizing her in his mind. He hates how she treated Eddie, never allowing him to truly be his own person because she feared just how fragile he was. Richie thinks she was just scared when she realized how emotional Eddie really was._ _

__Eddie spit vitriol just like Richie, fought with teeth and nails, but he also cried more than anyone else Richie knew. He got so upset that he would just burst into tears, angry or sad. Shit, even sometimes happy tears. That didn’t stop the little shit head from making shit head comments, tears streaming down his face or no. Eddie wasn’t fragile, he wasn’t overly sensitive, he wasn’t a fucking baby._ _

__He was the bravest person Richie ever knew._ _

__He sits on the patio for an hour, watching the sun reflect off the pool in the LA heat. Just sits there and feels colder than he ever has before. He thinks he’s waiting for something, waiting for Myra to call back and spit fire at him but she doesn’t. He thinks she might even just block his phone number at this point._ _

__He texts her a simple ‘Eddie didn’t even know’ but still no reply._ _

__He buys more weed and smokes it in record time. He shuts his mind off for twenty minutes to go grocery shopping, buying things that he knows he should eat but sound so bland in his mind. He can’t even force himself to eat a banana when he gets to the car._ _

__His manager calls, and calls and calls and fucking calls._ _

__Ten, fifteen, twenty voicemails later._ _

__Forty, sixty, a hundred text messages later._ _

__Stanley Uris is waiting outside Richie’s front door when he comes home from buying another bag of weed. Sixteen hours after Bev passed along his message, according to the watch on his wrist at least. Not like he actually knows what fucking time is anymore._ _

__“Hmm. Smells like Urine out here, gotta tell the neighbors to put their fuckin’ dogs on leashes.” He mutters as he shoulders passed to get the door unlocked._ _

__Stan doesn’t even snap back at him. Richie’s glad he cleaned up a bit before Myra sent him spiraling, at least the bottles are gone and Stan can’t scold him for that._ _

__“Are you sleeping okay, Rich?” Stan asks, hands in his pockets and his eyes cataloguing Richie’s meager furniture and decor._ _

__“Is anyone sleeping okay?” Richie asks, pulling things from paper bags and stocking them away._ _

__“Patty is.” Stan says quietly. “Or, was.” The wry twist of his mouth makes Richie give a small sympathetic grin, but the twist in his gut has his mind reeling a harsh ‘can’t relate’._ _

__“How’d you, uh, how’d you know to tell Bev that thing you wanted her to tell me.” Richie still won’t meet Stan’s eyes and he keeps pacing around like he’s actually got something to do besides freak out about Stan being in his space._ _

__“You can call it what it is, Rich.” Stan rubs a hand over his mouth. “We all went through it, you know. We all have the same nightmares, maybe individually, but they’re all the same trauma.”_ _

__Richie scoffs at that._ _

__“It exploited all of our fears, Richie. Not just yours.” His voice is stern, like he’s speaking to an unruly teenager. It brings back a few memories that Richie wants to tear from his head. Fighting with Stan wasn’t like fighting with Eddie. No one won, no one felt like the bigger man when they walked away._ _

__“That’s not-- I’m not saying that the effects were any different for me than it was for you or anyone else. But you were scared of, what? A fucking painting? I was scared of Bowers dragging me through the fucking streets because I wanted to make out with his cousin. It’s not the same. And the fuckin’ clown knew that.”_ _

__Stan shuts up for a few long seconds before he connects some dots and stares Richie down carefully, like he’s a feral animal that’s gearing to attack._ _

__“So, that time at Neibolt, when you and Bill-”_ _

__“Yeah, I remember that time.” Richie cuts in sharply._ _

__“When It used Eddie against you… that was because?” He doesn’t look shocked, mostly startled. Richie knew that Stanley knew he had not platonic feelings for boys, even back in Derry._ _

__“You can call it what it is, Stanny, we’re adults remember?” Richie’s shoulders sag but the bite in his words hit center. “Go ahead, I’ve heard every variation of any name you could possibly come up with right now, how’s them numbers for ya?”_ _

__Stan pushed his glasses up by the outside of the frame, whereas Richie still pushed them up in the middle. The stark differences between them now were creating a rift in Richie’s mind, that there was no way he was ever best friends with the man standing in front of him._ _

__“Richie, I wouldn’t ever call you anything like that.” Stan breathes out, eyes wide and growing wider. “I wouldn’t ever, Rich, c’mon, you’re my best friend.”_ _

__And just like that it all snaps back into place. Stanley always being the comforting presence just to the left of him. He wonders why the fuck his head is creating imaginary wars with people he loves like this, why everything is incredibly black and white._ _

__Must be from the trauma._ _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave a comment if you can!! I'd genuinely appreciate it :) 
> 
> the dreams are getting grittier and the drama is getting uglier (:

It’s nearly one in the morning and Richie just stares at the loaf of bread in his hands realizing he went fucking shopping at midnight. If anyone had caught sight of him he’s sure his manager would lose his shit even more than he already was. He lifts the bread up to his shoulder and swirls it a little to catch Stan’s attention.

“So, uh, time really got away from me today, hence the late night shopping trip. I haven’t exactly had dinner yet, have you already eaten?” He winces when Stan comes closer to really look at him. He didn’t want the eagle eye attention, just wanted to know if his friend was fucking hungry. 

“I could eat, Rich. It’s been like six hours since I had a granola bar. Let’s make some sandwiches.”

He had to bite his tongue down, hard, to prevent himself from making a comment about them having to face Eddie’s wrath of not sustaining normal, healthy eating schedules. It was the first thing that came to his mind and he almost couldn’t choke it down. It seemed that Stan knew Richie was struggling, he gave him a soft but not pitying look before he clapped Richie on the shoulder and opened the fridge to retrieve the head of lettuce that was on it’s lonesome in the vegetable drawer. 

Richie puts Stan up in the second guest room, avoiding the hall to Eddie’s (and how bad is it that he refers to that room as fucking Eddie’s?) completely and taking Stan up the stairs. They make simple conversation about toiletries and wish each other a good night. Stan gives him pensive looks the entirety of that fiasco and Richie really doesn’t feel like delving into just why that might be, especially not at this ungodly time. 

He leaves Stan to it, forcing himself to clean the few dishes in the kitchen so that neither of them has to deal with them tomorrow. He’s got soap up to his elbows, Alexa playing music gently in the background but what makes him still is the feeling that he’s being watched. He peaks around the corner of the entry to the kitchen but there’s no one on the stairs or standing by the front door, no one looking in through the sliding glass doors when he flips the outside light on briefly. The air around him feels charged, an icy thing running up his spine. Like moments before the wolf comes to separate Eddie from him in the dreams he’s been having. 

He waits another thirty seconds to hear the howl but it never comes, not like he actually expected it to. He wonders if this is what it feels like when another Loser has a nightmare and everyone else gets the residual effects of it, maybe Stan upstairs is going through some dream shit and Richie should get involved?

But that makes it seem too much like a video game, like a loading screen that makes the adrenaline pump through his veins, the excitement to go on a virtual adventure. 

He finishes cleaning up quickly, checks all the doors and windows before heading up the stairs and letting himself into his room. The room looks the same, bed messy from his abrupt upheaval this morning, clothes strewn along the floor in a path to and from the bathroom. He barely manages to get down to his boxers before face planting into the pillow and throwing his glasses at the bedside table. 

Once he finally turns the light out the feeling he had from downstairs comes back tenfold. He feels jittery, like he’d shake right out of his skin if he focused enough to do so. He groans and wobbles into the bathroom for a glass of water and rinses his face. When he lifts up from leaning over the sink there’s a figure behind him, since his glasses are halfway across the fucking room and trying not to fight over flight he wants to assume the shadow in the dark is just Stan. 

The dark puddles on his cream colored carpeting, increasingly pooling, and the raspy gasping noises filling the room indicate otherwise. 

It’s not fucking Bowers, he knows that much. 

“Rich-” the voice gargles at him. Not any voice. His voice. 

It shocks something into him and angers him that he’s not seeing this properly. He doesn’t feel panicked, for some strange reason. He feels anxious, sure, but like, second anxious? Like someone else is anxious and he’s being empathic enough to feel it. He grabs his broken glasses from the medicine cabinet with only a slight shake to his hands. The shadow is gone by the time the lenses make it over his nose. No trace of anything that just happened left behind. 

He feels like he’s in a trance, he sets the cracked glasses back in the medicine cabinet and puts the glass of water on the nightstand before slouching into bed again. He’s oddly not concerned about what he just saw. He closes his eyes and his dreams are of fire. A life he knew up in flames, his career, his home, the few friends outside of the Losers that he’d made. 

He’s on a stage facing an empty theatre, he goes to open his mouth but he can’t move his jaw. Which, fine, not the strangest thing to happen but he sees the thread lines holding his wrists and feet, feels one holding his neck in place but when he brings his hand up to touch his jaw it’s jerked away harshly. There’s cackling above and around him, he tries to take a step to the left and is jerked back and to the right five feet. 

There’s one person in the audience now, the theatre looks older than it had mere seconds before. Dust settled over the backs of all the seats and the candle lights at the lip of the stage are broken and withered. Bring orange hair and a white painted face around a ravenously wide smile taunts him from the middle seat in the fourth row. 

“C’mon, Rich, this is getting boring!” Someone yells from the wings and then all of a sudden Stanley is walking out, but not his Stanley. Neibolt Stanley, holding his head on his hip and howling with laughter. “You’re supposed to be the comedic relief but you’re honestly the most tragic person out of the Losers.” 

“And don’t even get me fucking started on that secret of yours, Trashmouth.” Starts from behind him and he flinches so hard at seeing little Eddie’s face covered in blood from where he saunters onto the stage. “I mean, you didn’t really think you could keep it a secret forever, did you? My mom always told me about her friends in New York and what they were seeing happening to those dirty, dirty people.” 

“We know, Richie.” Bev came stomping out, wild smile on her face and a flicker in her eye. 

The three of them started a chorus of “I know your secret, your dirty dirty secret” like a sadistic fucking lullaby, walking in a circle around him while he tried to shout for them to shut the fuck up.

“Just-just shut the fuck up! You don’t know anything!” Richie’s panting loudly, trying not to get dizzy as he follows their movements with sharp snaps of his head. “You only know what that fucking clown told you and it’s bullshit! He’s fucking bullshit!” 

The kids disappear like a puff of smoke, the lights in the theatre dropping entirely and Richie was left panting and frozen in place again. His jaw still moved under his control, thankfully. 

“I’m not scared of you, I’m not fucking scared. I’ve killed you before and I can do it again!” He shouts, listens to the echo reverberate back to him. 

“That’s right!” Pennywise giggles. 

A spotlight opens up on stage. Three feet away from where Richie is stuck. Eddie’s facing him, blood pooling around him like it always fucking does. 

“It hurts, Rich, it hurts so bad.” He whispers, blood spilling out with the movements of his lips. 

“Eds-” 

“You knew this would happen to me and you f-f-fucking froze up.” 

“No, Eddie, no, no I promise I didn’t-” The strings are cut and he’s dropping to his knees before he knows it, he’s crying and pleading to whatever god above there could possibly be to end this. To stop this madness. He can’t catch his breath the sobs are ripping from him so bad. 

The shrill ringing of the phone snaps him up and out of bed, Stan bolting through his bedroom door right as he answers the call. 

“‘Lo?” 

“Hi, my name is Monica Loveo from Derry General Hospital, is there a Mr. Tozier available?” Richie affirms and she takes a deep breath. “I think we have your friend here? Uh, I’m not technically supposed to be making this call but his wife won’t…” She cuts herself off again. “Anyways, do you know anyone by the name of Edward Kaspbrak?” 

Richie swallows loudly. “Uh, yes.” He makes it sound like a question before clearing his throat and looking anxiously at Stan. 

She sounds relieved when she continues speaking. “Excellent. I’m calling because, well, it’s incredibly gory and maybe not the best to explain over the phone. We found his wallet in his jeans after we cut them off, unfortunately some of the credit cards are missing but there was a piece of paper tucked behind his ID with your name, address and phone number.” 

“You-- you said something about his wife?” Richie’s eyes stung, he remembers writing it down for Eddie even though the asshole could’ve just put it in his phone. Not for the first time he’s thankful for Eddie's intricacies. 

“Oh. Uh, yes. She… wasn’t as comprehensive as you are.” Monica smoothes it over, continues on speaking like she didn’t just drop the bomb that Myra knew of this at all and didn’t fucking tell him. 

“How long have you had him?” Richie whispers. 

“Going on two weeks now, Mr. Tozier.” 

His knees give out and Stan grips his arm before he can fall completely to the floor. 

“He’s got an extensive grocery list of things that have happened and need to happen in order for him to regain consciousness, we have him in an induced coma to relax the stress upon his body. There’s been… a few close calls. I… Look, I know I have no right to really be meddling in his personal life but there’s, uh, there’s this gut feeling I have that told me to reach out to someone for him.” 

“I’m gonna hand the phone over to my friend Stan cause I’m probably going to throw up after hearing this but thank you so fucking much.” Richie breathes into the phone, tosses it to Stan and takes long enough steps to make it to the toilet in time for his stomach to do it’s thing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this part was actually difficult for me to write because Richie is just so.... emotional and I wanna fucking make him smile but he's so miserable. 
> 
> we have scratched the surface tho, time for some Loser Therapy :)

He can hear Stan talking softly under his retching, he jumps jerkily when both of Stan’s hands slide over his shoulders and lift the ends of his hair that were hanging into his face. It’s such a simple gesture but it brings more tears to his eyes and soon enough he’s sobbing into the toilet, body shaking with it, ugly noises echoing around them in the stark brightness of the bathroom. 

“Hey, Rich, it’s okay, it’s all going to be okay.” Stan whispers, one hand leaving his hair to rub between his shoulder blades, thumb tucking into the notches of Richie’s spine on its upward movement. 

“He was fucking dead. I felt it.” Richie coughs, gags, throws up once more. The tears mix with the vomit-saliva martini streaking his chin, he’ll be embarrassed later but the only thing running through his mind is the last time he saw Eddie. 

The warm face he clutched that didn’t react to a single thing he said or did. He’d cupped Eddie’s bandaged cheek trying to make him at the very least wince in pain but nothing. Nothing. No gasping breath, no eye movement, just… empty. The world around them crumbled as he knew it but he couldn’t take his eyes off Eddie. It wasn’t his first brush with a lifeless body but it certainly affected him a thousand times more. 

Richie grips the white porcelain tank of the toilet as he shoves himself up, grunting an apology when Stan shuffles back quickly with the motion. Everything is blurry without his glasses and he’s not feeling sorry enough to grab the cracked lenses from the medicine cabinet, at least not sorry enough with Stan watching him. He moves over to the sink and starts with washing his face before brushing his teeth. It’s routine by now, the same exercise in normality he takes after every panic attack. 

Stan seems to think he’s okay now, at least enough to put a ten foot barrier between them as he paces back into Richie’s bedroom. He’s working a circle into Richie’s carpet when he steps away from the bathroom counter, it’s just distracting enough to hold him through the anguish sweeping through his veins. 

He’s having trouble processing: Eddie, alive, coma, alive, Eddie’s alive, he’s fucking alive.

But there’s something else there, simmering just under the surface. Something vile and dark, something Richie’s only felt once before and that was picking up a baseball bat and facing down a fucking alien clown. He’s tense, muscles jumping in his arms and thighs with how much restraint he’s trying to maintain. 

That fucking bitch knew, she knew Eddie was alive. She still called Richie to torture him with the thought of not being able to call him, not being able to see the old ass vacation pictures on his tightly secured Facebook page, losing Eddie entirely except the memories that hauntingly flash like old film in front of him. 

Stan’s not watching Richie, doesn’t see him stalk over to the bedside table to slap his glasses on and snatch his phone off the bed. Richie relishes in the being in plain sight but still hidden thing they both have for the other right now. Like they need the proximity but not anything physical. 

Myra doesn’t answer the first call. She doesn’t answer the second, third, fourth or fifth. She does the sixth. 

“Do you know what time it is?” She hisses down the line and Richie grins, he fucking grins like a shark in a feeding frenzy. He’s sure it looks fucking crazy, sure that he looks fucking crazy. 

“You’re the most disgusting person, Myra.” He says it coolly but he knows she can hear the edge sitting right under the skin of it. Stan snaps his head over and his eyes are nearly bugging out of his head.

“It’s not the first time you’ve said this, Richard.” She huffs a sigh and there’s a rustling sound behind it. “What, dear god, do you want?” 

“I know he’s alive, Myra.” Stan steps towards him, lifts a hand like he’s asking for the phone but Richie turns his back to him and pretends that that is enough to shield him out.

“What?” She whispers, followed by a quick demand of “You-- how?” 

Richie wants to shout, he wants to fight, to draw blood and bite down with all his might but Stan snatches his phone and hangs up before anything makes its way out of his throat. Stan opens his mouth, undoubtedly about to rip into Richie like never before, when the phone in his hand dings with a text.

“Oh, christ.” Stan breathes and Richie doesn’t like the sound of that, the shock and betrayal thinly masking a rage just as fierce as the fire burning in Richie. 

He grabs his phone from Stan’s limp hand and looks at the picture message Myra sent him. It’s taken of her computer screen, the words PENDING capitalized in red print where he squints to see the wording at the top of the page. 

She filed for a death certificate. A week before the hospital in Derry supposedly had Eddie.

Richie throws his phone so hard at the wall that it cracks the plaster and shatters the phone. 

“Fucking evil bitch!” He screams. He leaves Stan in his room, makes his way to the kitchen slamming anything and everything he can as he goes, smacks his hands on the counter before reaching for the whiskey. 

He doesn’t know how long he spends standing in the kitchen, bitching and sipping, vision blurred by emotion and exhaustion. Stan comes down after what feels like hours later, he’s changed his clothes and combed his hair. 

“I called Bill.” He says, doesn’t look right at Richie. “Mike and Bev are in town, the three of them are on their way here. Ben’s project in Chicago wraps tomorrow, I’m sure he’ll meet us--”

The doorbell rings and Stan finally looks at him before nodding to himself once and leaving to answer it. There’s the hum of voices speaking quietly before they come around the curved hall to the kitchen. Everyone stops short and just watches him for a second, enough to make him feel so fucking awkward that the tears start again. 

“Buddy.” Mike breathes out, pulling Richie into his chest. He’s got his eyes squeezed tight but the feeling of multiple arms wrapping around him and Mike was unmistakable. 

“I’m sorry I-”

“It’s not okay to isolate yourself like this but we’re here and we’re gonna do all of this together.” Mike’s voice is shaking like he’s holding back tears and the raw emotion alone breaks Richie down. 

“We’ve been so worried about you Richie but every time one of us reached out it was like-” Bev sighs.

“I know, I’m so sorry.” Richie sobs out. “I’ve never been good at feelings, I spent twenty seven years letting my manager pick my feelings.” 

“W-w-we’ve got you, R-rich.” Bill’s eyes are red and there’s tears dripping off his nose. 

“I miss him all the fucking time and it hurts so bad.” Richie whispers, sharing one layer of the secret he’s clutching desperately to. 

“We all miss him, Richie.” Bev whispers back. 

“It’s different.” He sighs. “It’s completely different.” Apparently, he's incapable of shutting the fuck up.

“So, maybe tell us as much as you can or want and we’ll know how to help you better.” Stan says, but his voice is dripping in sadness and pain. 

“I feel like I’ve lost myself. Everything I truly know about myself was all wrapped up in Eddie and you Losers. Losing him after just getting him back, after just getting myself back-” his voice cracked, a new wave of tears flowing endlessly from his eyes. 

“You always w-were m-m-mighty dependent on each other.” Bill says softly. 

It comes out much like vomit, as it always does. The words pouring out from him and he doesn’t know how to make it stop, how to make himself shut up before he lets the biggest fear of his life out completely in the open space of his kitchen. 

“I love him so fucking much.” He breathes. “I loved him before I even knew what love was. I forgot about how much. I forgot the love of my miserable life and seeing him at the Jade just… punched me right in the chest.” He swipes a hand over his face. 

The arms around him squeeze gently and for the first time in a year he feels like he’s not about to shatter into a million pieces.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaand welcome back to the Tozier Mental Break Down Hour with your host and guest host: Richie Tozier and Stan Uris!
> 
> I am in the works of making a playlist for this, let me know if you're interested in hearing it :^)
> 
> Also let's talk about Richie having three different phones because I didnt even pencil that one in l o l

Once the sun braces the sky they settle into their patio chairs with steaming cups of coffee. There’s still a slight chill in the California air before the sun can evaporate it, it feels nostalgic like he didn’t know it could. Embracing the early morning hour with the only friends that have ever mattered to him, reminiscent of years as gangly teens that stayed up partying and had to work at the ass crack of dawn the next day. Eddie’s empty space between him and Stan hurts like a missing limb. The conversation flows around him, the same way his friends have been carrying it for almost the last year. Richie barely pays any attention until someone’s nudging his foot under the table. 

“The nurse from the hospital is texting you.” Stan says gently, sliding Richie’s phone across the glass table. “I’ve taken it upon myself to block Myra, by the way. That was… really fucking rude.” 

Richie smiles at Stan by way of saying thank you before unlocking his phone and reading the three messages already waiting for him. 

_Possibly Monica: Hi, Richard, it’s Monica again!_

_Possibly Monica: Your friend wanted me to send any kind of proof that I could_

_Possibly Monica: Edward walked into our ER, seemingly completely worn down and exceptionally in pain._

There’s a picture of Eddie in the same clothes he wore when they faced It. He’s covered in grey water, dirt and both dried and fresh blood. He’s unconscious but Richie notices the wedding band on his finger is gone. 

_Me: Hey, Monica! Quick q for ya, did you keep Eddie’s wedding band with the rest of his things?_

Before he can get a response another picture is sent in and it makes Richie’s chest ache so viscerally. Eddie’s covered in wires and tubes and bandages. He can see the white board for the nurses and doctors in the corner of the picture and sees today’s date. 

It’s like emerging from water and coughing up the bits that burned your lungs. 

_Monica: Ah, sorry Richard. Eddie wasn’t wearing any rings or other jewelry. He wasn’t coherent enough to explain if he’d been mugged either and it’s hit or miss if he’ll remember if he pulls through._

The next picture she sent was of Eddie’s wrist where his hospital band sat. His full name and birth date shone up at Richie but what caught his attention was the other bands that were quickly filling up the space of Eddie’s arm.

_Monica: Probably not a great idea sending you this, could possibly get into quite some trouble sharing patient information with non-immediate family but I wanted to confirm that this was your Edward Kaspbrak._

_Me: Yep! That sure is little Eddie Spaghetti. Thank you so much for this, Monica, really. Are we allowed to visit?_

He takes a deep breath, ignores the few glances from his friends and waits until Monica tells him yes. She tells him that they should come, that even with Eddie being in a coma he needs some kind of life around that’s more than just her staff. 

He pulls the picture of Eddie from this morning up and hands his phone over to Bev. She places her coffee down and covers her mouth with the same hand. Richie can hear the birds chirping in the morning light, can hear the cars that are rattling their way to jobs and offices, fuck even the wind is making a sound and it’s just a soft breeze. 

He hasn’t felt this awake in so fucking long. 

His phone gets passed around until it comes back to him and he sees the watery eyes of his friends. Bill is full on sniffling and it seems Mike can’t stop smiling. Richie doesn’t feel the ever present cloud of dread lift off him but it eases slightly. He knows this is a fucking blessing, but Bev startles him from his revelry when she sighs out something he’d almost forgotten.

“No one ever stays dead in Derry.” It’s soft, almost like she doesn’t want to be caught on it. Richie and Mike still snap their heads in her direction. “That’s what It said, with the old lady. It said that nothing in Derry ever stays dead for very long. I thought at the time that it was a threat to us, like saying we could try to kill It but It wouldn’t stay dead. And it didn’t, stay dead that is.” 

“Do you th-th-think--” Bill starts out, eyes wide and hands gripping the arms of the chair with a white knuckled grip. 

“No.” Mike says gently, rubbing a hand over Bill’s shoulder. “It’s dead. We all felt it as well as saw it.” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time that It put us in a fucking trance or something.” Richie grumbles and Stan nods along with him once. 

“I think we’ll know once we get back to Derry.” 

“God, fuck, I’m never going to be able to escape that place now.” Richie sighs, rubbing a hand over his forehead. His phone dings with a reminder, encouraging him to call his mom. He quickly dismisses it and ignores Bev’s raised eyebrow and Stan’s frown. 

He didn’t need to delve into that shit right now. His sister could handle any major meltdowns until after he could see the life running through Eddie. Bev calls Ben while Mike and Stan figure out airline prices, seating and packing. Mike was staying with Bill after spending a week working with some animal reservation in Washington state. It seems only Bill and Richie really have to depart from their friends to get their shit together enough to leave and it’s weird having people waiting on him like this again. It’s weird feeling the signs of life in himself coming back online, he feels like he’s slightly more functional now. Like he can focus because there’s a reason to, there’s a purpose again. Life is no longer the bleak gray scale blend it was before Eddie died in his fucking arms and it’s terrifying but also so fucking relieving. 

He doesn’t want to think about it, what it means or anything. He’s not fucking ready to face that truth and he’s not going to push himself to be miserable again before he even gets to fucking see Eddie. 

It’s self sabotaging, his therapist would say. 

He just wants a fucking drink. A celebration and commiseration all in one. Instead he pulls a stick of gum out and viciously chews it to fight the craving. 

It’s not like quitting cigarettes, not even close. Candies can’t keep his mind straying from the burn of liquor down his throat and settling in his gut like they do the oral fixation of smoking. 

He’s fucking trying. It’s more than he’s tried in so long. No one has brought up his desperate early morning confession about loving and being in love with Eddie, they didn’t blink any eyes at him weirdly over the pictures of Eddie settled into his hospital bed. They didn’t question Richie’s motives or ask condescending questions about the reality of his feelings. 

Instead they fucking hugged him. They held him close and thanked him for trusting them with this. 

So, yeah, he thinks he can try a little harder. Thinks it might be worth it more now than ever. 

Amanda still answers on the second ring despite the time difference. 

“Rich? You know what time it is?” She asks sleepily and he smiles to himself because no matter how much time they spend apart Amanda is always the same. 

“Yeah, sorry. I’m about to get on a plane to the other coast for some gig shit and I just wanted to call before. Let you know that I can’t field mom today.” She sighs and his shoulders tense. 

“Okay, Richie. You’re gonna make it up to me though, she never stops fucking talking about you.” Amanda doesn’t even sound annoyed, not like she usually pretends to when he calls her like this. “Also, where on the other coast? You gonna be close to me?” 

“Bout five hours from you, Mandy.” She sighs again. “I get in later this afternoon and have a few days worth of shit I gotta work through but we can meet up halfway for lunch or something.” 

“‘Kay, sounds good, Rich. Tell your loser friends hi for me. And don’t forget to fucking text me, you always say you will and never answer. I know I’m three years older than you but the age difference isn’t as weird as it was in high school, asshole, you can acknowledge your sister.”

He laughs a little before agreeing, getting off the phone fast after that and ignoring the ache in his chest. 

He’s gonna fucking try harder, for Eddie. For Amanda. For the Losers. 

A voice in the back of his head says that’s all well and nice but meaningless if he’s not working on himself to make himself happy.

He tells it to shut the fuck up and packs his suitcase.

They have a few hours before their flight leaves which only makes Richie more anxious. He’s been open about himself more than he’s been in his entire life-- comedy sets included. It feels like his skin is already raw but there’s still a sharp chafing feeling on top of it, he’s not settling into himself very well and he doesn’t know what to do to make it ease up. 

Stan, always watching, seems to think Richie doesn’t need to be alone. All Richie wants is to be alone, to think about what they’re going to face and how he’s not going to be able to fix anything like he wants. Maybe being alone in a quiet room with Stan is just the same, because he doesn’t try to force Richie into conversation or even to make more noise than the simple breaths they both exhale every few seconds. 

Maybe it’s enough, to know that there’s someone near him. Maybe he can make it enough, to be able to see Stan from the corner of his eye as he moves quietly through the house to the kitchen. He doesn’t ask Richie if he’s hungry but Richie knows he’ll make enough food for the both of them. He knows that Stan isn’t here to keep an eye on him but it still slightly feels like he’s being chastised for losing his fucking head for a year. 

He thought slipping down the slide into the dark abyss of his deepest fears was the hardest part. Getting back up? That’s fucking impossible from this low. 

He can’t even bring himself to make a dick joke about it. Can’t find the humor in suffering through your head while the world moves on without you. 

Almost like he died. 

Which makes him think about death, the people he’s watched slip from this world. His dad, his roommate when he first moved to California who overdosed in their shared bathroom, his uncle Peter, various comics that couldn’t stick to their own boundaries with addiction. Eddie. 

Except-

“Rich, where do you keep your mixer?” Stan’s poking his head out from the kitchen and it startles him how quickly he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. 

“I, uh, don’t think I have one.” They both ignore the cracks in his voice. 

“You’re a fuckin’ tragedy, Richie.” It’s too close to home, it’s too reminiscent of his dream and Richie can see the panic flash across Stan’s face as he takes a gasping breath that comes back out choked. He knows it’s supposed to be a joke and has known for years that Stan could spit vitriol just as good as he and Eddie.

He can’t fucking catch his breath, the room is spinning and Stan’s quiet voice is bouncing between too loud and also not loud enough. The pressure in his head is more overwhelming than the aching of his chest and the fact that he can’t feel his fingers or toes when he tries to move away from Stan’s hands and gaze is… something otherworldly. He’s out of his body, completely out of his mind and watching himself struggle to make himself focus on one thing at a time. 

The room sounds like it’s being vacuumed sealed but he quickly realizes it’s him trying to pull air through his mouth, the colors of the room around him are mixing with the tears springing to his eyes. He’s out of control, can’t find a hair of sanity to get himself to pull through like he has before. He always thought he’d lose control alone, thought that even that was fucking embarrassing. 

Stan’s got his hand on his own chest, elbows pointed down, and they move with his exaggerated breathing. He’s not talking or asking questions, but Richie’s sure they’ll come and he panics about the answers he doesn’t know how to give. Stan doesn’t stop breathing, his lips twitch and Richie realizes he’s counting the seconds between, counting how long it takes Richie to comply. 

He’s suddenly so angry. It shakes through him worse than the panic did, turns his veins to fire from their frozen ice, shocks his heart with jumper cables. He can’t keep himself together for more than a fucking hour at best, haunted by trauma and guilt, and he’s fucking losing it in front of someone who he was supposed to help protect and fuck. Stan wasn’t protected. 

They couldn’t help him. Stan fucking died, too. 

He can still hear Bev whispering to someone on the phone about wrists, can still hear her repeating “a bath?” 

He jerks so hard at the arms around his shoulders. Stan’s hair is brushing across his glasses and he hears the echo of a sob as the arms tighten around him. He’s warm and his heart is racing where his chest is pressed to Richie’s. 

“I’m right fucking here, dipshit.” Stan’s voice is cracking, his grip ever tightening and he’s shaking against Richie. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I made that choice but it- it worked, in the end it fucking worked and you lived Richie.” 

“I never fucking asked you to do that.” Richie whispers but he doesn’t know if he’s talking about Stan exactly. 

“It worked, you won. I’m alive and right here, we’re gonna make sure Eddie can say the same thing too.” 

Richie keeps holding onto Stanley until his breathing slows, until he can feel his fingers and toes, until Stanley takes a deep breath like he’s preparing for something. 

“Why’d you leave your therapist, Rich?” It’s soft, like he’s treading carefully around a wounded animal and Richie fucking hates being treated like he’s a loose cannon but… fuck he kind of is, isn’t he? 

Jesus mother fucking--

“She, uh, didn’t like me talking about Eddie.” It’s such a lie. 

A tremendous lie. 

The reality was that she wanted to analyze why he was talking so much about Eddie. At first he wondered if she thought that Eddie was like an imaginary friend of sorts. She’d ask him about the dreams, if Eddie had said anything key that he had held onto. She’d ask him if he’d eaten anything, if he was still taking his medication, if he was still drinking. He knew that she could tell he was lying, he just didn’t fucking care.

Then she wanted to talk about Derry and that just… sent him running for the hills. 

Stan’s narrowed gaze tells him that he also knows Richie is lying. Or at least giving a partial truth, which still lined up as lying in Stanley’s moral code. Richie wonders if Stan’s about to start yelling, start telling him off for being a piece of shit and letting himself get bad like this. 

His breathing picks up again and his mind starts circling the drain with thoughts of how Stan doesn’t need Richie’s shit on top of his own, how Stan has been a mental health advocate since he was released from his hospital stay and realizes that Richie’s a fucking basket case and a half who probably needs serious psychological analyzing. 

“I think we should find you someone else, maybe someone with more experience?” He poises it like a question, almost instantly tipping Richie off the edge again because he’s not entirely sure he actually has an option. “Bev might know some people, she referred me to someone in Atlanta and they’ve been fantastic.” 

And that. Causes Richie to pause. Mind temporarily blank until all his servers come crashing back to life.

Stan’s talking to someone. He’s probably not giving every gritty detail of the absolute hell they grew through as kids but someone other than the seven of them knows. Someone knows the explicit pain that Stan is going through, someone other than his wife and that’s. 

Richie can’t explain the helplessness he’s feeling in that moment. Of course Stanley can get his shit together, he’s always been quietly persistent. Stan’s face is so open when he looks back to him, no sign of malice or anger there. Just genuine concern and love. 

Stan’s his best friend and is looking out for him. Not trying to fucking commit him, just honestly worried about him like a good friend would be. 

Everyone knows Richie hasn’t been the greatest friend. They probably hold some reservations about it, might wait to do an intervention into his pathetic fucking life now that Eddie’s got a fighting chance. 

He’s so fucking tired of this battlefield in his brain, the obstacles he has to face just to have a day where his mind isn’t trying to kill him. Even when his friends explain in detail how they want to help him he’s so scared they’re trying to hurt him. He knows these people better than anything in the world but he wonders if they know him as well, panics about the thought of them actually knowing him more than his loud mouth and awful jokes. 

“We’re gonna get you back too, Rich.” Stan says and wipes tears from his face. “We’re all gonna be okay again, no Loser left behind.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Polarizing. 
> 
> Like magnets almost, he can only get so close but there’s severe levels of disturbance.
> 
> There’s a turtle sitting on the banister, with a slight pulsating light of its own. 
> 
> But-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! :) 
> 
> I have been experiencing some depressional things, it has been a very wild ride l m a o. But we have an update and it's coming it hot at just over 10k
> 
> GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE, DEATH AND SUICIDE.   
> Richie has a dream including seeing all seven Loser's deaths which includes: domestic violence leading to death, stanley's bath, suicide, murder and overdose/poisoning. Some are not as graphic as they are bluntly played out. It is in a dream sense, no one dies and everyone lives with an eventual happy ending in this fic do not worry.   
> If you need to avoid all of this it begins at "At least he assumes he's asleep?" and ends at "He gasps alive,"
> 
> Apparently I'm still sprinkling in dream telepathy as well, thanks bev! 
> 
> This doesn't exactly have a lighter ending so please read something happier after this bc I sure the fuck had to. 
> 
> I haven't had time to edit and really just wanted to get it posted so I'll hopefully be back to do that if I don't let the executive dysfunction monster win :^)

He’s freshly showered, hair dripping onto the shoulders of the nondescript black shirt he usually wears when he hits the airport at a busier time. He’s in the guest room, the first one, Eddie’s, towel in his hand gripped tight while he stares down Eddie’s bags on the edge of the bed. He’d purposefully left the door open behind, figuring he would be able to hear Stan approach but the rushing in his ears seems to block it out.

“Is that what I think it is?” Richie jerks and gasps before rolling his shoulders and nodding once. “Well, that’s fucked up. But it’s you, so. If anyone would’ve-”

“Yeah, I get it, Stan. It’s fucking weird but I couldn’t just leave it.” He didn’t want to leave Eddie and he feels the tension roll between them. 

“I didn’t mean that in the way you’re taking it.” Stan levels him a look before continuing. “If anyone knew Eddie as well as we all did they would know that out of all of us you would take care of it.” 

“Do I- should I bring it with us?” Richie asks, the blase look on his face faltering with the anxiety creeping in his voice. 

Stan seems to be weighing his answers. Richie doesn’t know exactly what answer he wants, if Stan’s overly positive Richie just might get too hopeful and then what? Continue through this dreadful life knowing he not only lost Eddie once but fucking twice? 

Jesus mother fucking-

“Yes.” Stan says. He doesn’t explain or say any falsely positive jibes to comfort Richie. He sounds sure of himself when he repeats “Yes, Rich, you should bring it.” 

It’s exactly the answer Richie was waiting for, the relief coursing down the tense planes of his spine. 

The airport is fucking loud, he always hates it but especially so now. The four other people moving around him make him breathe slightly easier but he’s still jumpy even as he keeps his eyes forward and away from making distinct contact with anyone. 

His manager is gonna shit if any pictures of him are posted online. Richie wonders if he’ll get fired, if this is the end of the line as he knows it for real. Not just a panicky feeling in the depths of his stomach. He’s thrown up twice since entering the airport and getting through security, the acidic feeling settling in his chest tells him they certainly won’t be the only times this trip. 

Sometimes he got lucky. 

He thinks about drinking on the plane and the void that is his stomach is set and roiling for the third time that day, not an unusual occurrence considering who he is as a person but it burns brightly up into his chest. 

Maybe it’s a good thing his body isn’t going to let him drink. Maybe it’s just a mental thing, his dumpster fire brain telling his body that it won’t accept another night passed out on the bathroom floor with his legs at a fucking awkward angle. 

He thinks about the statistics of alcohol poisoning in drinking addicts across the United States. He thinks about the percentage that died in their bathrooms and were pressed against the door so the emergency responders couldn’t reach them until they could remove the door. The numbers he finds on google makes him swallow roughly. 

Eddie would be proud he even thought about statistics, would probably shit his pants to know that Richie actually looked up proof of factual numbers and read more than one article backing the numbers, that the numbers were more than enough to help sway his decision further than the physical reaction. 

Mike shocks him from his reverie. He’s got a sharp eyebrow pointed his way and Richie takes the scene in briefly before shoving forward to board their plane and keep his fucking mouth shut. He’s called dibs on Mike for the plane to Texas before they connect over to Bangor. It’s as quiet as he expected it to be and he fucking hates it. 

So he does what he knows best and starts talking.

“I heard that you got to shave some alpacas up there, man. What the fuck was that like?” It lands like he’d hoped. Mike gives him a grin and pulls his phone out to show him pictures of the alpacas and goats he cared for. 

It makes him relax in his seat, lets Mike’s voice wash over him and allows himself to get caught in the pictures. 

“So that tiny guy there was such a little shit. He made me think of you, if you were a goat.” Richie laughs and watches the video of the black and white little goat jumping on and over a few of the other tiny goats. “He made the days a little bit better, just how quirky these animals can be it was so cool.” 

The hours go by slowly and Mike’s laugh echoes in his ears the entire time. He feels himself slipping slightly, like he’s still there and present but something feels off. He feels like he’s just hanging out, like he could be anywhere and with anyone and still just floating through. Mike doesn’t seem to pick up on Richie’s displancy, which he’s thankful for because explaining that he’s here he’s just floating above the plane at the same time seems like it would be a little tricky. 

Words don’t seem to wanna function for him for a while, so he lets Mike peter off and watches the ground moving way below them. They land, grab their luggage and board again. Bill and Bev thumb wrestle over who gets to sit with Richie while Stan and Mike walk ahead, already in a deep conversation. 

Bev whoops and Bill shakes his head before apologizing to Richie.

“Hey, it’s cool man. Performance issues, happens.” He shrugs and bites his lip to keep from smiling too big as Bill glares at him.

“Fuck you, man.” Bill laughs, face finally breaking before he waves for them to start moving forward. 

He now has a few hours alone with Beverly, four seats ahead of Bill and three behind Stan and Mike. Bev doesn’t talk for a solid half hour. She flips through some magazines she brought with her, making affronted noises at specific styles. Richie knew when she liked something because she would gently take her finger down the image before tapping it twice and flipping the page. 

Picking up on his friends' idiosyncrasies was interesting enough, he always liked learning things about his friends and being able to read their actions and reactions more in depth than what was being given upfront made him feel like he truly understood the people around him. 

With this, he didn’t expect to be read right back. 

“So, when you’re trying not to talk you usually fidget.” Bev says conversationally and Richie stills. “Just say it Richie,” she encourages, her voice soft and she’s kindly not looking at him to gauge his reaction. 

“I’m just worried about what we’re gonna be walking back into.” Richie sighs, pinches his pants above his knees and shifts like he’s trying to make himself comfortable but his skin is itching in the worst way. “What if he- and what if this wasn’t real? What if we get there and he isn’t even- and the fucking clown just-”

“Hey, hey, honey, no, shh.” Bev soothes, pulls his hand onto her shoulder but moves it closer to her clavicle. He can feel the steady rhythm of her pulse and it’s minutely relaxing for him. “The clown isn’t doing anything because the clown is dead, we killed him. That really did happen.” 

He feels stupid for needing the reassurance but she just smiles at him gently and rubs a hand over his forehead and into his hair. Bev’s not gentle, at least not like this towards Richie. They got along pretty well as kids, sharing their stories of bullying but Bev was always that glowing white figure of the collective heterosexual wet dream. He realized it watching everyone gape at her as she jumped off the cliff before anyone else, he never felt like that for Bev. Not like Bill or Ben did. 

She’s careful with Richie but he’s thinking about how she never was before. Even when Richie was desperately seeking the attention from the foul mouthed joking, she made him feel better by being rough with him. She’d push his face away and pull his hair, punch him between his shoulders when she was especially tired of the jokes but it was all in good faith. 

That roughness comes through, a little, her voice growing firm with the no bullshit tone she always used so perfectly.

“We’re going to go and be there for Eddie. We have to believe he’ll get better, even if the situation is looking bleak. I know that you know exactly how strong Eddie is and I also know that if Eddie were speaking to any of us right now he would flip the fuck out on you for not thinking he could be strong enough for this.” 

She pulls Richie’s hand from her shoulder, gently drops it and grabs his face. 

“We are all going to be strong like Eddie, okay, we’re going to brave this out and then we’ll find the next steps. We don’t have to have the answers all the time, Rich.” 

He’s never felt truly comfortable with a gray space, an uncertainty that runs along the bottoms of his feet as if he’s ever felt what solid ground was like. His life has been a toss up between faith and perseverance, before and after the magical mind numbing from leaving Derry. He likes the answers, likes the assurance of exact truth even if it’s not completely known. He’s been unsure of himself forever, but the assurance that someone thinks he’s worth putting on a stage in front of thousands of people settles that specific rattling in his bones for a few hours. 

Maybe knowing the exact reality of a situation is his coping mechanism for the way he constantly feels like he’s failing something. 

Maybe macromanaging wasn’t as healthy as he always thought. He always thought having the answers would soothe the anxiety, that it would take the bite out of an unexpected outcome, shelter him from certain consequences because he already knew something of it would happen and prepared to lose everything all over again. 

Maybe he should just prepare for what he’s about to face so he doesn’t make more of a mess of himself. 

He’s staring off into space, he knows he looks weird and he can feel in the way his face is tingly like the muscles have maybe fallen asleep, when Bev catches his attention again. She’s gasped over reading something in the gossip rag magazine she’s looking through but she seems frozen on a specific corner in the crease of the ‘zine that Richie has to lean over to get a glance at. 

Tom Rogan is getting married again, two months after their very much private divorce. Richie barely remembers hearing from Bill about Bev’s three day drinking binge when she found out Tom was seeing someone for the last year of their marriage. He wasn’t sober himself enough to call in to check on her but Bill had made it clear she was okay without the sentiment. 

He vaguely remembers that leading him and Bill to bitching at each other over the phone until Richie hung up on him and then puked everything in his stomach for an hour after that. 

Bev white knuckles the side of the page, neither of them commenting on her crinkling Mila Kunis’s face. She takes three deep breaths only to hiss them back out. Richie opens his dumb fucking mouth. 

“You know, it wasn’t until I was almost graduating college that I realized what an omelette truly is.” His voice is shaky and nervous, Bev can probably see right through what this is but she still takes the bait and raises an eyebrow at him. “It’s a fucking egg taco! The french thought they were so smooth but it’s an egg-fuckin’-taco.” 

She laughs so hard she snorts and Richie can’t help the smile that cracks his face. They don’t talk about it but Bev closes the magazine and “loses” it under the seat. He thinks he just accomplished something, an olive branch being reciprocated, and it makes him warm until the dreadful pit in the back of his mind sneaks in again. 

Bev squeezes his hand as they land and he can see Mike turn to catch a glimpse of them and Bill behind them. He’s not alone, there’s nothing here that could happen to him where he would have to do anything alone. It’s relieving and distressing, a possible situation where Richie is really at a loss is not what he wants to imagine will happen but he’s not ruling it out entirely. 

He has messages from Monica waiting when he turns his phone back on and he stops short before baggage claim to check them. 

Monica: Hello, Richard! Just giving you a quick update: Eddie’s been moved to the ICU. His oxygen count got a little low this morning and after the lung surgery for pneumothorax there were complications with the blood transfusion. Just as a precaution we moved him. He hasn’t shown signs of another seizure, we think there might have been allergies involved with that. 

Monica: Unfortunately there’s not much in medical paperwork by way of allergies, though I do have a lengthy list of his current medications but if you know anything explicit I would be much obliged to make note of it in his files. 

Monica: He’s regulated now and has been regulated for almost three hours. So that’s definitely a plus sign. The bone graft for his sternum is healing nicely, better than we had predicted. We are still waiting to hear back from the nephrologist about his kidneys and gastro for his liver, though he’s healing at a very good rate so we’ll see when that comes back in. Other than the cut in his cheek, we haven’t found any other injuries. He was extremely dehydrated, which did not exactly shock us considering the state he came in as. 

Monica: Though this update might be a little bit of a bummer, we have pretty good expectations of getting him back into his patient room within the next two days. This wasn’t as quick as I was hoping it would be, you’re probably just going to hear all of this again once we see you in person but I thought some discretion about Eddie’s condition would be preferred, as per request by your friends. 

Monica: If you would tell Mr. Hanlon or Denbrough that the arrangement they asked for has been set up for you all I would again be much obliged. 

“What the fuck,” he whispers, eyes blurring over the messages several times before he shoves his phone into Stan’s face rudely and exclaims “what the fuck!” 

“Richie, what-” Stan sputters before his glare glances across the messages on the screen. “Oh, shit.” 

“‘Oh, shit’ is right, Stanley. Did you tell everyone but me?” Richie snaps, looks at his friend’s confused faces before Stan grips his wrist tight and jerks his arm down.

“No, I got busy making sure you didn’t fucking- Jesus, Richie, come on.” Stan takes a deep breath and steps away from Richie and it slaps him like a physical blow. “I forgot, okay? I forgot. I wanted to make sure you were going to be okay and I forgot.” 

“What?” Bev asks, sliding up next to Stan to look up at Richie. “What’s happened?” 

Richie hands her the phone and crosses his arms. He won’t look at any of them, flinches when Bev pulls in a deep breath. His mind is so glaringly numb that he can’t even focus on being angry for too long. He can’t feel anything, he wonders if he’s missed his bags already before he sees them sitting by Mike’s foot. Eddie’s bags settled right on top. 

“W-w-we knew it was going to be sss-s-serious.” Bill says, rubs a hand over his eyes before nudging Richie with his shoulder gently. “How could it not? B-but we c-can’t let it s-sss-stop us.” 

He feels shame swoop through him so viscerally he jerks a step back. It feels like everyone in the airport is watching him make a fucking fool of himself in front of the only people who’s opinion matters to him. 

“God, shit, I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry Stan.” He breathes out, lifting his shoulders to try and pull more air in. 

“It’s not okay how you addressed it, you can’t jump my shit Rich.” Stan says quietly. “But I am sorry I didn’t tell you. I honestly forgot, I wouldn’t hold anything like this back from you. I understand that you’re upset but we’re not getting anywhere if we can’t talk to each other, okay?” 

He swallows hard before looking at his friends, the only reason he’s where he is at that moment. The only things keeping him strong enough to keep pushing forward are staring him right back in the face. But they don’t look upset or even disappointed. Mike looks worried, Bill is keeping his expression pretty blank but his eyes are warm, Bev’s eyes are bright but she’s nodding encouragingly at Richie.

“We can talk to each other.” Bev says, nods once more at Richie before she continues again. “We can talk and it’ll be okay.” 

So he repeats it to himself like a mantra as they load the rental cars with their bags and make jokes about racing each other to Derry. Mike doesn’t let Richie drive, which burns but also makes sense when he registers just how exhausted he really feels. Ben’s waiting at the townhouse when they arrive, standing on the front steps and lifting his arms open when Bev steps close to embrace him. He hugs each of them, laughing and smiling over a remark that Bill makes about the drive in. 

Richie doesn’t make a joke about bear hugs from Ben like he usually would, instead lets him himself be embraced and embraces back. Ben smiles at him when they step into the lobby area and tells him that they have different rooms than before, which Richie doesn’t think that the rooms will matter when they all look the same and he’ll still see Eddie’s blood dried on the floor in the bathroom and drips through the room to the hall. 

It’s still in the carpet when they reach the landing and Richie steadfastly ignores it to go several doors down and to the left. He plants himself face first onto the bed and ignores his phone for minutes while he tries to breathe through the rising anxiety. 

He never texted Monica back, maybe that should be his first step.

Me: Hey, Monica! Just got into town with the crew, settling our things in at the hotel. What time are visiting hours over? Are we allowed to see him in ICU? 

Monica: That’s great to hear, glad you had safe travels. Visiting hours are over at 8, so there’s still plenty of time to get in. For our ICU patients we only allow two people at a time. How many of you are visiting? 

Me: Uh, well counting myself there will be six people. Obviously we won’t all be in his room at the same time, but we’ll probably cycle through pretty often just to give you a heads up. 

Monica: Well, between 6 AM and 8 PM you can come and go as much as you please, Richard, there really is no concern about it. Just keep your group in pairs of two until we can get him back to his room and we’ll be all set. Are y’all coming in today? I can make myself available to go over everything we’ve done and answer your questions. 

Me: I’ll definitely be making a trip in, I’m sure I won’t be alone. Thank you for this, Monica, you’re a fucking goddess. 

Monica: Lol! See you soon, Richard. 

Ben and Mike are arguing mayonnaise and salad dressings when he makes it downstairs, Bill is eating olives and feeding pickles to Bev while they watch on with smiles full of laughter. Stanley is on the phone in the other side of the lobby, pacing and making quick motions with his hand a little bit too much like Eddie would. 

Bev smiles at him and offers him a pickle jar that he really doesn’t have any interest in but can’t help himself from asking “uh, Beverly, my darling, are those Kosher?”

Stan pauses from his conversation to throw out a quick “Fuck you, Tozier.” 

It’s the most normal he’s felt in a while, instead of marveling he just lets it settle around his shoulders and continues on moving around the room before settling into a barstool. 

“So, visiting hours end at eight.” He says calmly, makes sure to make eye contact with Bill and Bev. Stan’s walking back up to them with a soft smile on his face. “I don’t know if all of you want to go today or not, but uh, would someone wanna? Uh, someone wanna come with me?” 

“I will.” Bill says quietly. “I’ll go with you.” He’s so calm that he doesn’t stutter and Richie’s heart grows warm from the quiet confidence alone. 

“Yeah, me too.” Mike says, clapping Richie’s shoulder. 

“I wanna see him, too.” Bev says, smiling small but warm. 

“Looks like we’re all going with you, man.” Ben says after exchanging a nod with Stan. 

Richie takes a deep breath and allows this to also settle around him. He feels good, he feels sure of himself for once. He feels a little less sure when Stan peers around at each of them and even less after that because Stan has this contemplative look on his face.

“We need to come up with our story. Eddie’s been missing for how long? And nothing’s been done about it. Myra filed a missing persons but, honestly, considering he left town and his wife is the way she is… who the fuck would investigate that more than seeing it for exactly that.” 

“It helps that she filed that missing persons before I contacted her but it also means she’s waiting for approval for a death certificate.” Richie knows he’s feeding bullshit into it now, but they should all know at the same time that Myra is still a figure on the board. 

“I’m not sure what that w-wwaiting period is like in New York, but I’m almost p-p-positive it ww-would have to be longer than a year.” Bill says. Bev quirks an eyebrow at him and Richie smiles blandly when Bill raises his hands and says “I’m a writer, I’ve googled s-sssome fucking weird shit.” 

“We need a lawyer.” Richie sighs, lets his head drop back on his shoulders and sighs again. “I could probably talk my manager into getting me one.” 

“No, we need to just… Eddie met with us and then left in the middle of the night? Or we never saw Eddie, we don’t know?” Ben ponders, blinking between the spaces around the room. 

“I think we should just stick with the story we told the police in the first place.” Mike says. 

“I mean, I wasn’t here for any of it so, I guess I just need you to refresh me on what exactly that story was.” Stan lets out a weird sigh, runs a hand over his forehead and pays attention immediately when Richie opens his mouth.

“Eddie came up for a reunion, had a few nights of fun and then we all parted ways. We never talked about our plans for after the reunion and no one knew what Eddie exactly had planned.” Richie cites like he’s reading it dead off a paper in front of him. “We said it like that for the official record so Myra couldn’t come back and have us persecuted if she so desired after learning the truth.” 

Stan’s lips press thin and he nods as he thinks.

“We don’t know anything then. If the police ask questions, we tell the truth about Monica contacting Richie. We tell them about flying in from different locations, none of us were with each other before we got here.” He taps his fingers on his thighs and then takes his phone out. “I’m going to make a brief call and then we can head out.” 

Richie hates this bullshit already. Myra isn’t even here, she doesn’t want to be here, she doesn’t care about Derry or Eddie apparently. He remembers sitting through the questioning, the dead weight feeling in his gut as a guy in a wrinkled white button up asked him about the blood in the bathroom and then shook it up by asking about his fingerprints around the weapon that killed Bowers.

He doesn’t remember how most of his answers went, he knows he was talking massive amounts of shit that morning. He was hungover like a mother fucker and spitting vitriol whenever a question was asked, he didn’t fucking care if he wasn’t being fair to anyone. Richie had worried for Mike the entire time he was taken away for questioning. It might’ve been 2016 but Derry felt like it was untouchable, if they wanted a big black man to go down for something he truly didn’t do they’d let him fall and then kill him in his jail cell later. 

He truly doesn’t know what they’re going to face in the hospital, he’s not going to know how Eddie suddenly came back to life nearly a fucking year later, but he’s gonna find out the condition that he staggered into the hospital as. He’s gonna get the gritty details of how hard he’s struggling to stay alive, but Eddie’s alive. 

He’s alive and he’s not going to be alone anymore. Eddie was always scared when he was alone, always had a brave heart no matter what, but being alone scared him. Especially when he was alone in the dark.

And that’s where Richie left him. 

He refuses to let himself mess this up before he even gets to experience it so he forces himself to focus on the yellow lines passing his window while it feels like they all but fly to the hospital. Derry feels different now, still terrifyingly familiar but not as scary. Not as lethal. Bowers is dead, the fucking clown is dead and there’s not a single person that would really say anything to any of them now anyways. They’re not the weird outcast group of kids they once were, not so susceptible to crumble under the harsh pressures of adult aggression like they were. 

He wonders when he realized that he was punished for simply being a kid who was there at the time. Wonders when he realized that most of that punishment was mostly just anguish over not being normal enough to not face backlash. 

The hospital looks the same as it was when they were kids, they maybe updated the waiting rooms a few years back and he hopes the medical equipment is state of the line because the flashbacks from the decor alone are going to fuck Eddie up when he wakes up again. He follows the signs on the walls for the ICU, they file into the elevator to the third floor and Richie prays to whatever fucking deity to make sure the elevator doesn’t stop working mid-lift. They make it out alive and as he stumbles to the reception nurse’s desk a dark haired woman looks up at him and her eyes widen considerably.

“Oh.” She gasps, turns and leaves the room just as quick and Richie looks back at everyone like ‘well, fuck guys, I don’t know’ before Bill cracks a small chuckle. 

There’s a commotion down the hall and then someone says loudly “Okay, okay, okay, Claire. Jesus Christ himself could be in the lobby and I still would’ve had to finish my rounds.” The door to the right opens and Richie makes himself stand straight. The woman that exits looks him up and down quickly and then to his friends behind them. She clears her throat and then takes a breath.

“Family of Edward Kaspbrak?” She says it professionally but the smile on her face lets Richie relax into it a bit. “I assume you’re Richard?” She steps forward to shake his hand.

“Yeah, that’s me. Please call me Richie, no one full names me unless I deserve it.” She gives a small laugh before moving on to shake the hands behind his.

She goes down the line and repeats their names after they introduce themselves, nodding when they give her their thanks. She takes a deep breath and looks around at them for a few long seconds.

“I have to be honest, when we got Edward in here, it was total insanity.” She sighs and shakes her head. “Between his condition and the police and his wife-” she cuts off and makes a weird face that Richie is all too familiar with. 

“She’s a real riot, right? Has she, uh, has anyone said if she was going to be coming?” It’s Bev that asks, it’s not that Richie didn’t want to because he obviously needs to know if Myra is gonna Armageddon the fucking Derry General but Monica is snapping her head no very harshly before Bev finishes speaking.

“No, she made it very clear that she would not be coming here.” Monica looks at Richie for a split second before admitting “she asked me to restrict his visitors.” 

“What? All of us?” Bill asks, outrage clear in his tone.

“Just Mr. Tozier.” 

Ah, okay. That’s the game and Myra thinks she’s got the king in her kill spot. If he wasn’t fucking bone weary just by being here he’d have something to say about that but as it stands Derry General is not the soap opera on daytime television where his chaotic little heart can run amuck in the drama of it all.

“Am I allowed to see him?” Richie asks quietly. Monica watches him closely before she nods once.

“If two of you want to follow me back, I’ll show you to his room and answer any questions you have there.” 

The hallways seem to elongate, the consistent beeping sets his body on edge and he’s snapping his head around to look through the rooms. Eddie is in the last room in the hallway, right on the corner so of course he’s got the most windows out of all of the rooms. Richie almost wants to thank Monica for that too, but Stan raises an eyebrow at him to move into the room first.

The first thing he realizes is that it’s cold in the room, but Eddie won’t be bitching much about that considering his pale face is shut down completely. There’s not even a wince of pain there, no anxiety creasing his brow, he would look like he was sleeping if it wasn’t for the breathing tube in his mouth. 

He knows Stan didn’t come into the room with him for a reason, can hear him asking Monica questions outside of the door. He’s almost thankful for a reprieve, the constant beeping and whirring of machines in the room keeps it from being overly silent. He feels like he’s taking up so much space in the room, like his limbs are expanding in spite of him. His feet shuffle, not as loudly as he expected the sound to be, as he moves to a chair closest to the bed. His knees give out a little as he starts to lean into the seat, his breath leaving him in a sharp whoosh as he can finally see Eddie’s face clearly. 

The gauntness of his already sharp cheekbones has his shoulders hiking up to his ears. Eddie looks fragile, dark circles around his eyes and a small frown where the tube pulls gently at his lips. He doesn’t exactly look weak, even crying while holding onto a broken arm and bouncing around in the basket of Mike’s bike Eddie could never look weak. He looks exactly like how Richie left him too, face slack but his eyes are closed. He’s drifting along that thought, apologizing several times to the man in the bed without actually speaking a word. He’s on the cusp of something, some awful thing tearing and clawing at his throat, when he jerks forward and gently slides his hand under Eddie’s. 

He’s warm, so very warm, like sitting in the sun warm. A breath he didn’t know he was holding slowly pushes out and he can feel himself trembling slightly. Eddie doesn’t react, he really didn’t think that he would but he feels a tiny bit of disappointment. 

“Hi, Eds.” He sighs, pushes a hand through his hair and squeezes Eddie’s hand. 

He’s bent over the side of the bed like that, just watching Eddie carefully, when Stanley knocks gently on the door and steps inside. His eyes are red rimmed and he looks exhausted, he won’t meet Richie’s gaze but he smiles gently when he stands along the opposite side of the bed. 

“Seems so surreal, to be here like this. For him to be here like this.” Stan speaks quietly, like Eddie’s only asleep not induced and he doesn’t want to risk waking him.

“He always hated this hospital specifically.” Richie laughs a little about the irony. “Remember the rants he would go on and on about? Probably just some regurgitated bullshit that he heard his mom saying about health codes and bedside mannerism.” 

“Oh, shit, yeah. And you always said the worst shit to keep him going until we finally had to separate you two.” Stan laughs, it’s soft with remembering and Richie feels the cold end of nostalgia as they creep back into reality. “Listen, Richie, when I was outside talking with Dr. Menendez… she told me some hard shit. It’s not going to be easy to hear it.” 

Richie swallows and nods once, he knew to expect that. The warning was nice. He doesn’t like the beating around the bush tactic but he can keep himself patient a few more minutes to let Stan choke it out.

“Myra really did try to put you on a restricted visitors list.” Richie expected nothing less, especially after their last conversation, but it still made him a little twitchy. “Monica was very vague in how she prevented that from happening, I’m not going to risk her position or anything for the details, so we’re just going to be extremely thankful.” 

It sounded like how his mother used to talk him into socializing at her church functions, how she’d speak in a nice soft tone that left Richie knowing it wasn’t threatening but he better keep his shit together so help her God-

“Eddie’s in good hands here, though, Monica impressed me with the run down she gave and I think she’s trustworthy. She keeps a brave front but she’s been worried about Eddie since he came in, think she might have a soft spot for our boy.” 

It’s relieving, to know that someone else can look at Eddie and see just how fucking special he is. Even if he was covered head to toe in his own blood. 

“But I don’t want to get into the medical issues he’s facing until you’re ready to hear them.” Stan takes a deep breath and finally meets Richie’s eyes. “I don’t think you’re ready to hear them right now. Everyone else will know, Monica is probably talking to them right now. I’m not singling you out or- or saying you don’t deserve the truth. I just think you need more time like this before you hear it.” 

Time like this meaning sitting alone in a quiet room, just watching Eddie breathe. If he weren’t so fucking weary from everything of the last year, more specifically the last few days, he might fight this. He can tell that Stan expects him to. He’s dropping his shoulders down to make his stance more firm and Richie just sighs.

“Okay. I won’t- can’t disagree.” He says, watching Eddie’s face instead of Stanley’s. “But don’t put the kid gloves on for me, I may not be the exact embodiment of ‘emotionally stable’ but I can- I’ll be able to handle it. When the time is right.” 

“When the time is right.” Stanley agrees, looking down at Eddie now. 

Nothing changes, the machines beep and whirr, Eddie stays dormantly induced. 

Seconds, minutes, hours later, Stan turns to the door and says he’s going to let someone else come in now. Richie jumps from his chair but he doesn’t let go of Eddie.

“I can go, let someone else in. I don’t wanna hog up all of Eddie’s time.” But Stan just shakes his head with a small smile.

“Sit back down, Rich. No one’s going to be mad that you take up a second residency here.” 

He’s out before Richie really thinks this through. Sure, the Losers know. How he feels. Who he is. He feels almost selfish for taking a longer turn than anyone else, for being the first person to see Eddie and then not allowing anyone else to take his place at the bedside. It’s not long until Mike is sliding into the room quietly, he looks at Richie with a warmth that he doesn’t feel he deserves before they both focus on the man between them. Mike doesn’t say anything for a long time, just watches Eddie and the machines and the way Richie white knuckles the blanket in front of him. 

“You should talk to him.” Mike says. “We all should. Just things we remember or things that made us think of him. I read a few interesting articles about comas and the brain process through them. He just might hear you.” 

“I’m kinda at a loss for words right now, Mikey.” It sounds off to his own ears, dull in the sense that Trashmouth Tozier never was. 

Mike doesn’t answer, just keeps looking at Eddie with a contemplative look on his face. The clock ticks the seconds by until minutes pass, but there’s no tension between them. Mike is a quiet and peaceful presence in the room, he gives Richie room to breathe even as he sits across from him. 

“Do you remember the summer between sophomore and junior year, when Stan’s cousins came in from Bangor?” Mike’s voice holds a light humor, he’s smiling down at his hands as he picks at the old wood of the armrests. “You wouldn’t stop calling them goys.” Mike hit the accent Richie used perfectly and it felt like a dam bursting over him. 

“Shit, Stan’s dad was getting so pissed with me about it.” Richie laughs softly, remembers suddenly rolling in on his bike with Eddie hanging off the back of it. He remembers seeing Stan’s pissy face and knowing that his cousins came in earlier than expected, could hear the false cheerfulness in Stan’s mom’s voice as she walked through the house with their company. So of course once said cousins came outside to see who the new people were his stupid trash mouth opened up and said “what’s up, goys?” He elongated the vowel with a slight accent, a triple entendre of goys, guys and gays. 

Stan’s cousin David curled his lip up at him, being the smaller of the twins he was the timid one, and Anthony leapt from the front porch stoop to tackle Richie off his bike. David stepped on Richie’s glasses while Eddie tried to pull Anthony off him and Rabbi Uris had to call his mom to bring him home safely. Eddie went home with him and refused to call his mom to ask permission to stay over that night. Back when being brave meant facing down your overzealous parents and they could share a beer after Went had gone to bed.

“Stan didn’t talk to me for like four days.” Richie smiles up at Mike, shoulders hunched down like he’s nestling into the memory. 

“That was the same summer Bowers punched you in the nose-”

“Tampon nose!” Richie cheers, overjoyed. “God, fuck, how did I forget that one? You were holding the bridge of my nose to set it back in place while Bev shoved the tampon up my nostril.” 

They smile at each other, the moment feeling light. Richie remembered so much when they first came back to Derry, overwhelming amounts of memories that he hasn’t ever properly found the time to leaf through. He shuts down the river of memories that think he’s ready for them, lets the serene and solid quiet around him and Mike settle, forces his mind to stay completely blank while he takes in the beeps and boops of the machines all connected to Eddie. 

Eventually Mike leaves and it’s a few minutes before anyone else comes in. Richie finds himself drifting, at first falling asleep with his neck tilted back so uncomfortably he thinks he might need to hit the nurse’s station to ask for a muscle relaxer or hit the ER on the first floor. He plants his forehead on the bed next to Eddie’s hip, lets their hands fall apart and closes his eyes. He breathes in deeply and he’s asleep. 

At least he assumes he’s asleep? He’s not one for time travel, portals, astral projecting, or anything close to the sci-fi shit he used to think up as a kid. 

He’s not sure where he is exactly, a nicely built house with so much extravagance he can almost taste it in the air. It’s got a specific flare, an under current of style that he thinks he’d know just about anywhere. The colors blend and swirl in all directions from the first floor to the top of the stairs. He’s impressed by the stained glass and the murals in the tucked away alcoves, he can pinpoint the pieces that cost the most like the nearly gaudy chandelier above him. He’s peering up the stairs when the arguing starts, thudding feet and shouts of anger. A flash of red hair as a body is thrown down the stairs. 

Beverly gets up, misses Richie entirely and bolts. She doesn’t make it to the door. Tom Rogan is hot on her heels with his bloodied knuckles lunging through air and curling in her hair. 

“Hey! Hey!” Richie shouts, goes to put a hand on Rogan’s shoulder to jerk him back and shock him off Bev but Richie is neither heard nor seen.

“Get- get the fuck off Tom!” Bev screeches, fingers scrabbling to dig into the grooves on Tom’s hands. He’s got his fingers tied into her roots by this point, hauling her back into the hall only to toss her onto the bottom steps of the staircase. 

Richie’s body moves faster than he thinks it should, nearly face planting from his shoulders jerking forward before his feet do. He stumbles only twice across the hall, shouting useless threats. Beverly is thrashing on the stairs under Tom where he’s straddled her, kicking her feet up into his back similar to the ways she would attack Richie when he pulled her feet from under her in the quarry. The three of them are all panting, Bev’s voice is shrill when she demands Tom let her go while Tom curls his fingers ever tighter and lifts her head from the stair with his pull. He’s repeatedly throwing her head back into the edge of the step and it takes everything in Richie to lunge forward only to be thrown across the room with the same force. 

Polarizing. 

Like magnets almost, he can only get so close but there’s severe levels of disturbance.

There’s a turtle sitting on the banister, with a slight pulsating light of its own. 

But. 

But the room is going fuzzy, blurry around the edges. Bev’s screams turn to groans, turns to choked whimpers. By this point Tom has a hand on her chin shoving up as he pushes her head down, the small cracking sound and Bev’s sudden limpness are the last things Richie’s allowed to have because everything goes dark like he’d fainted. 

When his eyes refocus he’s in a bathroom.

His stomach sinks with so much fucking dread, he knows exactly what he’s about to see. He wonders if he’s still polarized, if he’s still prone to existing without ever making contact, if he has to watch another one of his friends die brutally again. He gets his answer when Stanley calmly walks into the room and locks the door gently behind himself. 

“C’mon, man, don’t make me watch this. Stanley. Stan!” Richie snaps his fingers in front of his friend’s face, claps his hands together, shouts for Patty. She doesn’t come.

Stan says nothing to Richie, doesn’t even look at the six foot figure of a man reflected in the mirror as he meticulously removes his clothes. He folds each article down to his socks, leaves it in a stack on top of his shoes on the counter and then removes his watch. Richie can’t even make a joke about Stanley being naked in front of him right now if he tried, it won’t be like Stanley will hear it and everything will fix itself. He steadily keeps his eyes above Stan’s waist, marvels in the worst way over just how calm Stan is. 

The razor is settled into a black kit, obviously an expensive shaving pack because while Stan might have been a slightly pretentious kid he never settled for less than what he thought he deserved. Stan starts the water, leaves his fingers under the flow of it until it reaches a temperature he’s content with and waits patiently as ever for it to fill the tub. 

Richie closes his eyes when Stan gets into the tub, closes his eyes and hears a specific laugh echo around the room. He glances around quickly, looking in all corners for the clown but ends out meeting his own gaze in the mirror with Stanley slicing into his wrist behind him. The turtle is sitting on the tub’s edge by Stan’s feet. 

He doesn’t black out so much as fade out slowly, listing to the left like he’s falling through the floor head first. 

His head comes up above water. It’s rushing around him, shoving and twisting him down a severe stream. He’s not sure he’s even alive at this point, not sure if he could drown in the current. 

He’s heading towards a tunnel. 

Looks like a storm drain. Maybe a sewer. There’s a ridge ten feet above the current where someone is currently putting things into a backpack. The faster Richie moves through the water, pushing himself along the bank line, the clearer the figure above becomes. 

Bill is filling his backpack with rocks. There’s a paper boat clutched in his hand when he stands, grunts with the effort of moving the pack to his shoulders. Richie’s blood turns to lead when Bill takes a running jump into the current and doesn’t come back up. 

He loses his glasses when he dunks himself under, blurry and dark shapes moving rapidly in the water and he can’t find a single fucking part of Bill on the bottom of the channel. He pushes himself back up above the water to try and make out any form moving ahead of him but he nearly smashes his face into rock. There’s a small turtle sunbathing atop of it. 

He chokes on water as the current takes him down into the tunnel, guesses maybe he could drown after all. He wonders if Bill is floating. 

“Am I in the fucking deadlights still?” Richie questions aloud, appearing in the lobby of the most modern interior he’s ever seen. 

All sleek wood and shiny metal and uncovered lighting. It’s so-

“Ben!” Richie gasps, striding forward to join the small crowd that’s with Ben.

“I started this project years ago in an attempt to make the tallest office building in Hong Kong. We really didn’t think we were going to be able to do this, with the working conditions and foundation issues it really felt like a pipedream.” A few people make affirming noises, most of them smile up at Ben. “My team really inspired me with their dedication and focus.” 

Ben continues his speech, enjoys schmoozing for minutes afterwards before a man with a very sour face approaches him. Richie isn’t close enough to hear the whispers, but it doesn’t seem entirely friendly and he naturally moves closer to find out just who the fuck this guy thinks he is messing with Ben Handsome like that. 

Ben waves a hand to the elevator and Richie has to run to slide through the doors into the lift with them. 

“You never told me there was an issue when I had the roofers here two months ago.” Ben says, polite face drawn and voice tense. “I’m not trying to overstep my employees, but what exactly did I hire you for if you weren’t keeping the codes close to chest? Or routinely checking in with our contractors?” 

“It slipped through when the fourth and thirtieth floors collapsed.” The ice was layered on thickly, the man’s lip curled when he finished speaking. 

“Jesus, Mark, you were not the only one handling that.” Ben snaps, the elevator dings and the three of them step out into the hall and walk towards an exit door. 

They come out on the roof, what feels like millions of miles above ground level. The wind feels like it’s moving the building and knowing just how much Ben loves intricacies Richie is sure that the building is aerodynamic in any sense possible. Mark leads them to an edge, scuffing his shoe along the pavement. 

Richie doesn’t see any damage, he doesn’t see any underlying issues in the foundation of the roof but he’s not exactly a contractors wet dream like Ben is so he thinks maybe he doesn’t notice it. 

“I don’t see anything here, Mark, what is this?” 

Richie’s looking around for the turtle, he’s been through all of this with that stupid fucking turtle so where the fuck is it?

Mark and Ben both tumble over the edge of the building and Richie shouts as he lunges to grab at Ben. There’s a turtle flag waving atop a building below them. 

He’s starting to feel like a fucking basket case, he thinks he’s perpetually stuck crying. The tears are blinding his vision, the uselessness grabbing him directly by the throat and he can only guess at what’s next. 

Apparently, it’s Derry’s public library. Where Mike is shelving books, completely alone. Not a single person can be seen in the library, there’s no one checking the small and weathered movie collection. No one perusing the shelves of fiction. No one sitting at the tables in the atrium studying the history books lain out. 

“God, Mikey, if this is anything like what the past thirty years have looked for you I am going to apologize to you again whenever I’m done... polarizing.” It’s so quiet, unearthly quiet like it always was in Derry after dark. 

He follows Mike home, watches him sigh and grunt while making dinner and Richie watches as Mike seemingly makes his mind up on something. He’s learned by now that he can’t touch, that this is like virtual reality pay-per-view, but he can’t help himself when Mike comes out of his room in jeans and a sweatshirt. He tries to clap Mike’s shoulder as he looks over the papers and maps spread on the table and finds himself feet away for his effort. Ice floods Richie’s veins when he realizes from the passenger seat of the truck as Mike turns onto the old dirt road towards his family’s farm. 

The same ice hollows him out when Mike reaches into the bed of the truck to retrieve two gas cans. Richie stumbles nearly blindly as he follows Mike around the house he used to help with weekend chores in (even when he was never bothered to help around his own house) towards the barn. He can tell that it’s been sitting for a long time, wooden planks from the roof have fallen in and it seems like the left wall is bowing a little under the weight. There’s still hay bails lining the inside, surely too dry during this time of year (even if he doesn’t know exactly what time of year it is). 

“Blessed be.” Mike says quietly to himself as he sets out walking the inside of the barn with the first can of gas. 

The pack of matches sitting on the workbench by the second can has a cartoon turtle just above the strike pad. Mike sits himself in the middle of the barn floor, Richie naturally sits across from him and waits for him to say or do anything. He doesn’t, he strikes a match and Richie gasps when he gently sets it in the middle of the circle they’ve made. 

Mike doesn’t scream when the burning starts, he just keeps whispering “If you believe it does.” 

It echoes in Richie’s head. 

“If you think for one more second that I’m going to let you drive to work in this condition, Eddie, then you really don’t know me at all and must think I’m some- some-”

“Myra-”

“Oh here he goes! No, Eddie-”

“Myra!” 

Eddie’s already in the car, buckling his seatbelt and checking his mirrors. Richie seems to slide in unnoticed, because of course not even Eddie could fucking see him. 

“Please just take your pill, dear.” Myra pouts, her reddened cheeks grow darker when Eddie rolls his eyes at her.

“Fine!” He reaches out and accepts the pill from her hand then turns the ignition in the car. “I have to go into the office today, there’s no debate on this. I’ll call you later.” 

“Love you!” The tone Myra uses, in fact just about everything about her, has Richie reeling from a long ago Mrs. Kaspbrak. 

Richie distracts himself from their parting goodbyes by looking at Eddie, the sharply pressed white button up shirt and black slacks. The gelled back coiff he’s got going on with his hair that is entirely unlike the way it looked in the cistern while fighting their fears. Richie watches the line of his throat as he swallows the pill. Eddie’s brows are drawn, mouth in a firm line as he makes his way onto a parkway. It’s easy to forget why Richie’s here when he mutters curses at other drivers and slaps his hands against the wheel. 

He’s got an 80’s alternative radio playing. No one loves Robert Smith more than Eddie. 

“Hey, remember when you and Stan were the first ones to get your licenses? Your mom fucking flipped anytime you were driving after dark so you made a point to drive at night almost every day? But she couldn’t get mad at you ‘cause how else were you supposed to learn?” 

Eddie, of course, does not answer. But the weird gurgling sound from his stomach does. 

“Don’t tell me you skipped breakfast, Eddie baby, you know that’s the most important meal of the day.” Eddie coughs once, grunts with it and white knuckles the steering wheel. 

Richie is the fool who falls in love. It’s blinding, the songs were all right. He’s caught watching on in horror as Eddie coughs again, then a third time. The fourth brings out some bloody vomit, enough to slide down his chin and stain the collar of his shirt. Eddie’s losing sight of the road when he chokes and brings both hands to grip his stomach. 

“No, no, Eds, c’mon. Pull over, just get to the side of the road and puke.” Richie’s pleading to deaf ears, reaches over to pull the wheel when Eddie overcorrects while nearly seizing and the back of the car starts to fishtail. 

Eddie’s nearly seizing and nearly foaming at the mouth, or maybe he actually is or maybe he’s actually not. Richie’s crying too fucking hard to know the difference anymore, watching the love of your life die in front of you twice while helpless to do anything really fucks with you. 

The brief clarity he gets shows him 1-800-0TU-RTLE on the radio’s screen in the dash. 

Eddie overcorrects once more and Richie’s entirely sure the car goes airborne. He closes his eyes for impact. 

He remembers the hotel room. The one in Florida. He was supposed to go to the Miami show, it was sold out. 

He finds himself watching a younger him pace the room instead of going to the show. He knows what happens next, he knows what could’ve really happened here if he’d put any more effort into his actions. 

The knock on the door is just as jarring as he remembers. The anxious swoop in his gut is just as dreadful. He lets himself fade out of attention as the man enters the room and his younger self starts the scene. They situate themselves on the bed, wet noises springing from their kisses, hands roaming freely. He checks his watch. 

“You’ve got three minutes.” He tells himself. “You better have a fucking plan.” He says. “You’re not going to like how this goes down.” He’d be disgusted by himself if he didn’t know just how good this felt in the moment, exploring this in adulthood beyond a childhood crush he couldn’t even remember. It’s not like younger him knew he was going to be caught, he was certainly enjoying himself for the time being. 

Three minutes pass and the only move Young Richie has made is south. He’s kneeling on the floor, mouth wrapped around a dick and lewd moans ripping from his throat. Richie hears the beep of the automatic lock and the door swishes open. His manager is on the other side, middle of his sentence cutting off with a choking noise and Young Richie barely pauses in what he’s doing as the door slams shut. 

Richie doesn’t watch the comeshot, just remembers going two hours with come on his face and having to get his stomach pumped the same night. There’s a turtle on the bag of cocaine, the other pills he somehow acquires have etchings of turtles on them as well, it’s all fucking turtles.

The balcony has a nice view, the closet looks right out over it. This time Steve doesn’t come back to talk him down. He kicks the chair. This time the sheet doesn’t rip under his weight. 

He gasps alive, awake, decentralized. He touches Eddie’s hand and isn’t thrown halfway across the country for it, the clock on the wall states he wasn’t asleep longer than 10 minutes, Bev and Bill are both in the room and making soothing sounds as he pulls in lungful after lungful of air. 

“I’m-” He cuts himself at Bev’s nod, she’s got her lip between her teeth and her eyes are watery. “Was that?” The words won’t flow together in his head, can’t form in his mouth. 

“It was.” Bev whispers, her voice holds a different level of subdued horror than he’s ever heard before. “That was exactly what I saw.” 

“Like, from the d-d-deadlights?” Bill asks, inching forward in his chair, worried wrinkle creasing his forehead. Richie notices just how much Bill’s hairline is receding, notices the signs of aging obvious in Bill’s face. 

There’s shouting in the hall as Stan blows through the door.

“So, uh, Myra’s here.” He’s rapid cycling between the three of them holding the door shut behind him as the shouting rounds closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To friends at protests: please keep yourself safe, please protect the protest organizers and fellow protestors.   
> Black lives, dreams and futures matter.  
> Black trans lives matter.   
> If you can't donate or protest please please please watch the playlist and live streams on youtube named black lives matter donate. It generates money from ads, yes, but it's still money being donated. Easy to put on in the background and write/read fic :^)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: 
> 
> Richie - his way of talking to/about women, he is aware of being demeaning and though he feels shameful upon realizing it he makes no move to apologize or correct his behavior, makes a throwaway comment about Myra's parents, assumes Myra wants to be a mother and that it would've saved her marriage, uses a 'gay tone of voice' to say pet names to bother Myra. 
> 
> Myra (generally) - calls Richie a manwhore, manipulative with her explanations of her obsession of taking care of Eddie, roundabout homophobic intentions in her comments (implies being gay is a 'dilemma').
> 
> Other than those I think we're good but let me know if I need to add anything up here!!
> 
> HELLO again, it's been a month and this is shorter in comparison to last time like majorly. This is dialogue HEAVY but there's some plot, finally, lol. I'll see you again soon friends, I plan on updating once more within the next couple of days depression allowing (please leave some encouraging thoughts/words I'd SUPER appreciate it)
> 
> :^)

Mike thankfully curbs any animosity that Myra carries into the hospital. Richie’s still unsure of how exactly he does it, one minute she’s giving Miss Piggy a run for her money in the hall and the next she’s entering the room and settling her eyes directly on Richie. 

She fucking smiles. Right at him before blinking over to Bev’s narrowed gaze. 

“Can we please have the room?” It’s more a plea than a demand, almost like she thinks they’ll refuse. Richie almost wishes they would. 

“Are you going to play nice?” Bill asks snidely and Bev smacks his shoulder. “Sorry.” He doesn’t sound like it, at least not to Richie and he gets the feeling Myra’s on the same page here if the wrinkle creasing between her brows is any figuration. “R-rrrich, if you need us w-we’ll be right out there.” 

Stan steps through the open door after waiting for Richie to meet his gaze, he mouths a quick “don’t fuck this up” before Bev grabs her purse and turns to follow. Both her and Bill watch him for a second as well and it makes his skin itch. He knows they support him but they also know he’s not in the space to have serious adult conversations, least of all with the love of his fucking miserable life’s wife. 

Richie turns to watch Eddie instead of Myra settling her purse in one chair and stepping towards the other seat closest to the bed. The only change in appearance from mere minutes ago is where he pulled the blanket away from Eddie’s hand, it makes him sad for a reason he can configure. He hears Myra settle and lets out a slow sigh before turning his gaze to her. She’s got her hands clasped in her lap and her fingers are twitching, it’s obvious she’s preparing for something and Richie wants to say he expected this to happen between them but more so an all out brawl than a moderately quiet hospital room conversation. He read somewhere once that hospital rooms hear more truths and prayer than a church. He guesses he’s even more of a statistic now than he ever was. 

“I am not a bad person.” She says quietly. “No more bad than you, at any rate.” Richie stays silent, the thrumming of anxiety and adrenaline rings in his ears. “I don’t hate you, much as I try. I just wish you understood-”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me.” Richie says, not as quietly as he’d hoped and winces when Myra’s shoulders jerk. “I’m not… listen I’m not trying to start a fight. I’m not asking for a fucking grieving competition via pathetic ass phone calls anymore. You do what you have to do but I’m going to watch out for his best interest-”

“Yet you assume that I’m not? He’s my husband, Richard. I have put myself on the backburner for years to supply him with only the best. The best medicines, doctors, insurances, whatever I could make happen for him; I did it. I didn’t finish college and you know why? Sonia had congestive heart failure, she died right after Eddie graduated and he spent four years terrified that every beat of his heart was a tick of a bomb. He wasn’t functional, he didn’t know up from down and I fixed that.” 

“He doesn’t need to be fixed, that’s where you’re in the wrong. You think you can fix him, you think everything has a cure and it doesn’t. It fucking doesn’t. You find ways to cope, to function around it. So he was devastated his mother died? The same woman who fucked his head to shreds? He has to learn to grow from that, Myra, not find the next person to pull the reins for him.”

“It’s not his fault!” He can’t look at her, knows that if he allowed himself to it would all end in fire. He keeps his gaze firmly on the clock by the corner of the room, feeling more like a petulant teenager as the seconds grow longer. 

“I didn’t say it was! You’re a smart woman, you’re telling me you never got tired?”

“Of course I got tired but it’s him, he’s always going to need it. I knew that and I’m still here.” Myra’s breathing hard at this point, cheeks pink and steadily getting darker. “Our marriage has never been perfect, it wasn’t even perfect before we got married. It’s always been functional and rational. Convenient. Of course we’re married, it’s… it’s the dream.” She cuts herself off with a wistful sigh.

“Don’t sound so disappointed, princess.” Richie’s an asshole, he fucking knows. He wishes he felt any remorse for the way Myra’s face hardens. He can picture it well, the dream that Myra paints of their marriage and the simplicity of the life they held. Late night regrets notwithstanding, obviously. 

“You wouldn’t even understand what it’s like to have a single decent relationship in the first place. All you’ve ever blabbered about is what it’s like to be a manwhore and live unrestricted.” 

“And now you’re taking your marital guilt out on me, congratulations darling.” He rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, suddenly feeling defeated. “So you’re saying that you hold regrets because you gave your life to him but you literally decided that. You made that choice and realized the, what, the work outweighs the rewards? Are you not satisfied?” 

“It’s not a matter of satisfaction-”

“Then what the fuck is it, if it’s not your own happiness then what is it?”

“I stopped living for myself!” She shouts. “I got scared and I started caring about him more than he could ever care about me in a fucked up way to earn his attention and love. But it never worked, it pushed him further from me and I-” This isn’t the worst he’s seen or heard from her but it is the most honest. She’s biting her lip and squeezing her eyes closed, like the words are hurting her leaving her mouth. 

“And you?” He prods.

“I really resent him.” She sighs. “I gave my entire life to focus on him and it was never appreciated the way I thought it would be.” 

“You know why things like that never work?” And here he is, being an asshole again. The only way he can put it is bluntly and he has no reason to hold any punches with Myra, so he spits it out. “You can’t make decisions like that for someone else without their explicit say so. If he never asked you to do that then you shouldn’t have assumed he’d want you to. It’s manipulative and bordering abusive. You expected him to give you something he didn’t know you needed after you didn’t give him a choice of what he needed from you.” 

“Guess your therapist was good for something after all, huh?” She snipes, crossing her arms over her chest.

“No, that’s just respecting your partner enough to know when to communicate with them. Sorry you didn’t learn that from Mommy and Daddy, but some of us had functioning and loving parents.” It’s his one proud memory of being a kid, his parents always loved him best. 

“You really don’t know anything about me.” She says, plainly like that’s all there is and he knows she’s right. He’s unfairly judged her this entire time and he doesn’t plan on stopping. He knows with people he’s assumed as the enemy it’s easier to play close to the chest. He’s not giving her ammunition for anything. 

“You really don’t know anything about me either.” He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. He’s tired, it’s seeping through his muscles and into his bones. A deep running exhaustion that feels more than physical. 

“I do have to give you more credit than I was, you’re a lot more than I figured you were.” It’s an almost compliment, an olive branch that he’s willing to take for the time being. “I’m sorry we’ve been so vicious to each other.” 

“We’re certainly not going to become friends.” He grunts out, rolls his eyes at her eye roll. 

“Certainly not, I’m of a specific class status.” She turns her nose up but she’s smiling, he can take the joke for what it is and play into it. It’s nothing. He wants to rip his hair out suddenly, she’s playing coy and he can’t get a read on the situation in entirety.

“Oh? What, upper working class?” He sneers, looking back over to Eddie just to see if he’d laugh. It jars him back to reality, the real reason he’s here and talking to this woman. 

But she laughs. It’s almost melodical, soft and sweet and nearly soothing. He wonders if Eddie was the one who didn’t want children, Myra could certainly be motherly. Maybe that would’ve saved their marriage if she’d focused on someone other than-

“You’re an ass, Richard.” She says primly and the veil is up again. “I have no idea how Eddie has ever been able to deal with you.”

“You and me both, doll.” He can tell the pet names are chipping away at her and he plays them up, adds a little twang and oomph to each one. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you a mantra in his head. “You’re the one who came here and dropped emotional bombs all over the place.” 

“I will not let you shame me for my feelings, if I’ve learned anything in life it’s-”

“Yeah, okay, I get it, sorry, but the point still stands. You came all the way here and dropped your marriage problems into my lap.”

“Have you ever seen those movies where the wife finds the other woman and explodes?”

“Technically no and I don’t like where you’re going with this. Nothing has ever happened beyond friendship between Eddie and I, there’s no betrayal to you and thus no reason for you to treat me as the other man. I can’t give you the sympathy and compassion that you’re looking for, Myra, I hold my judgments against you. How could you possibly think that I would help you?” 

“I’m scared. I’m scared what’s going to happen from this point on, I know he’s not going to choose me. I know he’ll choose you-”

“He’ll choose himself. That’s the difference between us. You want to control his outcome and I want him to pick his own.” He’s holding tight onto the rage swelling behind his lungs. 

“Doesn’t change my fear.” And that’s fucking rich, that’s so fucking rich. He wants to rip her limb from limb. 

“I’m scared every god damn second of my life, Myra. But he’s still going to be his own person at the end of it all. He’s brave enough to be that much.”

“Eddie always was. Brave.” She whispers, staring at Richie with a look of panic like she wasn’t supposed to say that. She swipes at her cheeks before turning away. “I’ve never been brave. Strong, yes, I could handle the consequences when they came but I was never the one making the decisions.” 

“Don’t tell me you were the quiet housewife type, because after all of our interactions I hardly believe that.” He hasn’t been nice to Myra, not even in his own fashion of mean. This is a depth of himself he’s never dwelled on too long, this cruelness settling in his mouth and veins. He knows the comedy he puppeteers for is demeaning to women, he never thought he himself held those beliefs until the nasty comments leap freely from the swell of his lips.

But she laughs, surprisingly, and Richie’s wrapped up in it. It’s disarming for the viper she’s made herself out to be. He’s not proud of himself and the reaction has shame flooding through him quickly. 

“I certainly have never been the quiet woman in anything I’ve done. And you certainly don’t know how to talk to women, it’s fairly obvious now that I understand your… dilemma.”

“You don’t know anything, remember? It’s mine and that’s enough. At least I can admit that I’m fucked up, you come prancing in on your high horse and start preaching to me.” 

She’s quiet for a long minute after he stops talking, a far away look in her eye. She hasn’t touched Eddie once since she’s come in and Richie’s oddly happy about it. He knows once he’s gone she’ll do whatever she wants but that’s neither seen or heard and doesn’t exist to him. 

“I’ve known since before we got married that Eddie wasn’t right for me. I truly thought we could make it work, he was always willing to give and I was always willing to compromise. Two partial rights does not a whole make.” 

He doesn’t know what to say to that, much less want to truly delve into it. They’ve sat here for an hour by this point, searing silence between barbed responses and he’s exhausted. All of this has been exhausting. The phone call, the flights, the dreams, being seen and feeling caught out. It’s settling heavily on him and he doesn’t want to talk anymore, he doesn’t want to dissect every part of what Myra’s saying and think about all the different connotations her tone gives. He wants to talk to Eddie, he wants to hear a familiar voice to direct him through the craziness. 

“I’ll settle the visiting schedule with Michael. That was one of his ideas, so we don’t have to run into each other very often. It’s better this way.” 

She’s going to let him come back. What the actual fuck is happening. He’s finding himself in more situations of being speechless than he ever has before, it’s uncomfortable. He’s always got a quick quip or jab to put out there to either ease or raise tensions. The relief pulsing through him is shocking, he didn’t realize how anxious he was about not being allowed back in this room until she killed it. 

“You should get some rest, Richard.” She says quietly, refusing to even glance at him as she stares down at Eddie. “We’ve got some long days ahead of us.” 

Richie watches her face as she takes in the tubes and wires connecting to and crossing over Eddie. She doesn’t look angry or evil, she doesn’t necessarily look angelic but the light reflecting off her hair gives her a slight glow. Richie fucking hates it and her. He stands, drags his fingers over the top of Eddie’s knuckles and leaves the room without saying a goddamn thing to her. He stops in the hall, turns and looks back through the window at her. She’s pushing the hair at Eddie’s temple down before sitting up straight and announcing “I like them, your friends. They really seem to care about you.” 

Bev’s unmoored stare from the waiting room is the only stability he has to make it down the hall before collapsing in the chair by her. She instantly wraps an arm around him, pulls his head to her shoulder and hums soothingly when he melts. 

“Well, she’s not going to call the cops on us for showing up again.” The Losers only crack a smile, Stan sighs a breath of relief. 

“Thank you.” Stan says seriously. “For handling that.” 

“I have a feeling we’re all going to get a taste of it eventually.” Richie sighs and leans forward onto his knees. 

“Let's get some food and head back to the townhouse.” Ben offers, smiling at Bill’s quick nod of agreement.

“I wanna talk about that dream you had earlier, not tonight though. You look awful right now, Rich.” Bev whispers as they step towards the elevators. 

“You saw it.” He shrugs. “You already know what I saw, you already know what it all means. None of that’s going to happen because we killed It, right?” 

“Yours was different. For me it was the aftermath, I had to envision how you’d all gotten to those endings. You saw the whole scene.” 

“So you think that It-”

“No, I don’t. There’s no way It’s still alive.” She chews on her lip as they step into the elevator and doesn’t speak again until they’re straggling behind the group into the parking lot. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t something meaningful there. The turtle?” 

Richie stops and blinks at her. 

“You think-?”

“Eddie always liked turtles the best, you think we manifested-?”

“Holy fuck, Beverly!” He shouts, gaining the attention of the others. “Holy fuck, did we fucking summon another alien god?” 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Stan snaps.

Mike’s face drops in confusion then his eyes widen. “Maturin.” 

“There’s m-m-mmmotrin at the hotel, Mikey, w-w-what?” 

“Maturin!” Richie crows at Stan, a hoarse laugh tumbling out before bubbling into a sob. “Fucking turtle god, fuck, how’d we forget that one?” 

“Oh shit.” Bill whispers. “Oh shit, that’s right. The turtle couldn’t help us.”

“Eddie called on him back in ‘89, during our fight with It.” Mike says slowly, almost like he doesn’t believe himself but Ben’s nodding eagerly along with him.

“When Richie and Bill got separated from us in Neibolt, Eddie said he thought of turtles until It got to him.” Ben supplies. 

“Fucking christ.” Richie breathes. 

“He’s paying back a debt.” Bev whispers.

“I remember after, uh, after I went to this empty space. It was like floating.” Stan’s voice cracks on the word, his eyes refusing to meet anyone else’s as he looks to the sky. “He said risks and rewards are fallible concepts, true risk will never have true reward because there is always too much to lose.” 

“Gee, that’s pretty inspiring.” Richie snarks. “So we get Eddie back but he’s stuck in a coma for the rest of his life? Wonderful!” 

“He said there was still something that must be done, together. He had to bring us all back one last time.” Stan flicks his gaze across five other faces before settling on the sky again. 

Bev taps Richie’s forehead four times before saying “fuckin’ dreams, dude!”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am back again with a shorter than usual update, I was going to combine the last one with this one but for my own pacing I decided not to. The next update will be our usual 7/10k length so expect a little bit of delay again lmao. 
> 
> I don't think there's any severe warnings, a brief glance at Richie's addiction/abuse of alcohol. Some dreamy fun (but not the steamy dreamy fun kind sorry) Richie calls Bill a slut, Bill calls Richie a bitch (if these words are an issue) 
> 
> FINALLY INTRODUCING EDWARD FRANCIS KASPBRAK (only 8 chapters in l o l )

“Okay, explain to me the first scene you saw.” Stan says as they’re sitting around a booth in the diner closest to the townhouse. He’s directly across from Richie, with Mike to his right and Bill on his left. They’re sat around the table exactly how they used to be, with the empty space for Eddie on Richie’s left reserved by Bev’s purse and Ben’s cheery smile at the head of the table.

Richie flicks his gaze to Bev before picking up a few fries and shoving them in his mouth, giving him a minute to consider his phrasing. He turns his gaze to Stan and takes him in. The grey speckled hairs around his temples and up to his crown, the smile lines around his mouth and slight crows feet around his eyes under his wire frame glasses. Even if Richie never remembered him he thinks he could pick Stanley out of a lineup with his eyes closed. 

Stan’s watching him right back, his eyes moving ever so slightly with their roving focus. He can’t meet his gaze for too long, something cold drips down his spine and his throat closes. Stan was the one with the best eyes of them all, could pinpoint a lie before it was ever dropped from a mouth. Eagle eyes is what Bill called him, bird brained is what Richie had supplied. 

“So we already knew that Tom Rogan was a piece of shit, right?” All movement at the table halts and Richie refuses to look up from his plate. “But in the dream it was worse, so much worse. Uh, obviously I couldn’t do anything to stop it but I tried, it was like it was polarized. I couldn’t touch anyone or I’d be, like, proton blasted backwards.” 

“You can talk about it Rich.” Bev says quietly and he takes a deep breath in.

“Yeah, I don’t really wanna rehash it like that. Molly Ringwald saw everything too, if you want the nitty gritty you can ask her. What I saw, it... I couldn’t touch any of you and no one heard me. I tried to do something and it just,” He allows his sigh to finish the sentence. 

“Each time one of you died there was always a turtle nearby. It always stayed around me everywhere I went. Spelled out on the screen for the radio, sitting on a rock I almost smashed my face into, in patterns on a hotel bedspread and on bags of drugs, on lighters and gas cans. Just fucking everywhere.” 

Ben’s gaze snaps to Mike sharply before he blinks back to himself and looks down. Richie thinks this is peculiar and risks a glance to Bev. He blinks at the dark expression on her face as she’s glaring at Ben. It’s very odd but he adds it up quickly.

“Huh. So Haystack knows too.” He doesn’t pose it as a question and holds his hands up in surrender when Beverly whips her glare over to him. “You can tell him whatever the fuck you want, I’m not the trauma police.” 

“I know that.” She says cooly, tucking a red curl behind her ear with perfectly polished fingernails. It’s something Richie has noticed, the stark difference of Beverly's femininity. 

Fingers snap a mere inch in front of Richie’s glasses and he jerks back before smacking Bill’s hand out of his face. They had once gotten kicked out of this diner before from Richie pulling the same move to Eddie and the explosive argument following. The memory isn’t lost on Bill either, the apologetic look he shoots Richie before looking away says just as much. 

He throws his napkin on the table and looks back to Stan. “None of it was fucking pleasant and I’m not in the mood to digest it even more.” 

“Can we talk about Muh-muh-mmyra then?” Bill asks.

“Why not, you gossip slut, let’s dive into the second most traumatic thing to happen to me today.” 

“S-s-ssstop being a little b-buh-buh-bitch.” Bill shoots back, but he’s fighting to stop a smile so Richie lets his shoulders drop. 

“Only if you feel comfortable, Rich, you don’t have to push yourself too hard.” Ben reminds him and for once Richie can’t even bring himself to make the mandatory sex joke. 

He wipes a hand over his mouth and thinks really hard about what he’s willing to discuss for a split second before his tongue makes the usual decision for him.

“She said she resents Eddie for not loving her for obsessively manipulating him.” Richie rubs at his eyes until there’s spots dancing in his vision and sighs harshly. “She’s got me stuck as the other man even though as far as I’m concerned it’s all one sided.” 

“Jesus.” Mike sighs. “Do you think she’s gonna give you any trouble?” 

“She said she’d talk to you about a visiting schedule, so I’m assuming she’s gonna give me my peace as long as I give her hers.” 

“Wait, she said she resents Eddie?” Stan asks, confusion written across his face and laced through his tone. 

“She said that after Sonia died he was a wreck, she gave up her dreams to ‘fix’ him and if that wasn’t where their marriage issues occurred then that was the spark that lit the fuse.” 

No one says anything for a long minute and when he looks up they’re all sharing the same look amongst themselves. Richie feels like he’s missing something, like they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop when he’s already got them both off. 

“What the fuck is wrong with your faces?” He tries to joke, to break the tension but it only makes it worse. Stan’s looking between everyone confusedly as well, maybe this isn’t just a Richie Is A Stupid Idiot moment then. 

“When we visited Myra in New York, after Eddie’s celebration of life, she had an associates degree hanging on the wall.” Mike says. “It was in applied sciences. I asked her what career she had settled on and she said pharmaceuticals.” 

“Are you fucking with me?” Richie asks, already fully aware that Mike wasn’t. 

“She had pictures of her hanging in the living room in a pharmacist coat.” Ben says. “It was next to the picture of Eddie holding the keys for their house.” 

Richie doesn’t remember any of this, he only remembers talking to Myra and leaving. He doesn’t remember looking at pictures or seeing degrees, can’t even recall what the fucking paint color of the walls were. It’s all blurry after he had started drinking and he’s not sure if that’s a byproduct of abuse or something more sinister. 

He feels weird, he’s been sweating for the last hour and the food hasn’t helped settle his stomach like he was hoping it would. He’s got a craving, wants to feel a specific burn settle low in his belly. His hands are shaking slightly when he looks down at where they’ve fallen into his lap. 

“I don’t remember any of that.” He says quietly, he snaps his head over to the waitress passing through and asks loudly “can I get a beer, please? Just whatever’s on tap, I’m not being picky right now.” 

She nods and he ignores Bev’s pointed look. Not a single person says anything. His beer arrives and he swallows a quarter of it off the bat. It’s not what he needs but it can tide him over until they get to the hotel. 

“What do you mean you don’t remember any of that?” Beverly asks and her tone is almost too gentle. It ruffles a few feathers of his.

“I mean that I got pretty fucking drunk there and I was whacked out of my mind with fucking grief or whatever and I’m blanking on it.” It’s a lot more louder and cruel sounding than what he thought he’d deliver it with. Bill’s chin drops as his eyebrows shoot up and Stan’s lips thin with a curl of disappointment. 

“Finish your beer and we’ll get you back to the hotel.” Ben says, leaves no room for argument and a new conversation starts up around him but not including him, thankfully. 

He’s left alone until he gets to his room, Mike clapping his hands on Richie’s shoulders and marching right on in behind him with a smile like this is a friendly conversation they’re about to have. Richie knows it’s not. 

“Well, Michael, I would really love a night cap but I think I’m more ready for night than the cap so-”

“Cut the bullshit, Richie.” Mike warns. “I’m not here for any problems or big conversations.” 

“Oh? Then to what do I owe the pleasure of your ever so sexy company?” His delivery is flat, shoulders up to his ears and he’s looking at his and Eddie’s bags sitting in the closet. If Mike doesn’t want something then why the fuck would he even bother? It’s not like he has something that Mike would want anyways. 

“Bev has this theory with the dreams-”

“Yowza, Mikey, sleeping together before you even take me out to dinner? What kind of man do you take me for? A very easy one, sign me right up.” He mimes using a pen swirling in the air and dots his i’s. 

“Rich.” Mike’s smiling regardless of the stern tone, easily accepting the bullshit and letting it roll off his back like always. 

“Sorry, yes, theory, please continue my hot librarian friend.” 

“She was talking about Ben’s dreams in the waiting room while you were sitting with Myra. Apparently distance is sort of a factor for the details of the dreams we receive while the running plot is always the same: our fears.” 

“Wait, okay, so I’m just tuning into this whole thing,” he moves his palms in a circular motion around the room. “I didn’t get to really ask in the hospital room after my most recent dream but Bev knew what happened as soon as I woke up.” 

“Well, I hate to break it to you like this, but we all saw it. Individually, at least, not the whole running film of it. Ben saw Bill’s, Bill saw Stan’s, I saw Bev’s and she saw Eddie’s. I don’t need to know what happened in your… part? I guess, but I’m here to maybe help steer the dreams and get some information, if that’s even possible.”

Richie blinks at him, watches Mike blink right back, before he bends at his waist and shouts with laughter at the floor.

“A dream guide! You’re a fucking dream guide, what the fuck is my life?” 

“Yuck it up, Richie, you won’t be complaining if you don’t wake up screaming later.” 

“Is that a promise?” Richie winks before sliding into the bathroom and closing the door gently. Tomorrow is a different day, tomorrow he can sit down with everyone and get all the intricate details on how this whole dream shit seems to be working, or not working apparently. 

Mike’s stretched over, limbs hanging off and brushing the floor, the loveseat and poking at something on his phone. Mike’s always been the only one to compete with Richie in height, Ben got close but after sophomore year and fitness camp he stopped growing upwards and got bulky instead. Mike was bulky and tall, sure and content, while Richie was lean and gangly until his mid-thirties. 

“C’mon, dipshit, get in the bed. You’re gonna fuck your back up in the least fun way like that.” Richie untucks the blanket and top sheet from under the pillows and flops onto the side by the window, purposefully keeping his back to Mike as if that would shield any kind of gay panic he could have. He remembers sharing a bed with Bill and Stan as kids, sometimes Eddie if he ever got the permission to stay the night. By the time Mike came around they had all started using their own sleeping bags. It’s been decades since he’s only slept by someone without sexual intentions. 

“Good night, Richie.” Mike says softly, yawning right after.

“Night, Mike.” 

But it feels like hours before he can even get his eyes to shut. He’s not thinking about anything in particular, just floating along the edge of nothing and everything. There’s a few thumping noises from the older couple Richie’s seen walking in and out of the room next to his but they’re inconspicuous hotel noises and eventually he forces his eyes closed. 

He’s back in the hospital but Eddie isn’t in the bed and everything looks… rotten. The walls are sagging with moisture and covered in mold webs, the machines are rusted and falling apart. There’s dripping sounds and mice squeaking as they run around the halls. It’s not the worst environment he’s dealt with in a dream and figures his Walking Dead binge is getting to him finally. 

“Richie?” He hears someone call down the hall and when he peeks his head out there’s Mike standing down the hall with a relieved smile on his face. “Hey, it’s working! You took a little longer than I thought you would.” 

“What’s going on here?” He asks, leaning over into the nurses station to find anything but only found scattered papers and broken glass. 

“I don’t know, I wasn’t here until you were apparently. I was at the farm, there was a fire.” Richie snaps his head over to Mike and swallows roughly. “Yeah, I figured you’d know a little something about that. Anyways, we should try looking for the others I figured they’d show up when we did but we don’t know the rules.” 

“Dream Law 101 states that there are no rules.” Richie says snootily, British guy coming out slightly as he toes at some trash lining the hall. “ What’s the goal with this?” 

“Well, we only know that we can share dreams but we need to test if we can influence them or if they’re focus points settled by someone else.” 

“You think turtle god is involved?” Richie bites his lip and Mike shrugs.

“We know it’s not the other god, so, who knows really. It could just be Derry.” 

“There’s always something magical about coming home.” Beverly sighs wistfully as she steps through the doorway. “I had Stan and Bill behind me but downstairs got flooded pretty bad and they were waiting for Ben.” 

“Wait, there’s running water?” Richie barks, glances at the defunct elevator and shakes his head before running towards the stairs. “Bill-”

“He’s fine, Rich-” Bev starts.

“Woah, hey-” Mike says, trying to catch Richie’s arm and missing by a hair. 

“Richie!” The third voice to call out to him is shrill and scared, exactly how he last remembers it. It stops him cold, only halfway down the flight of stairs. He snaps his head back to Bev and Mike, sees their wide eyes focused on him. 

“You heard that too?” Bev nods her head fastly before waving him back to the top of the stairs. “Was that him? Was that fucking Eddie?” 

“Was he in his room?” Mike whispers. “Richie when I got up here you were coming out of his room, was he in the bed?” 

“No, fuck, no he wasn’t even in the room.” He rushes out, his gaze sweeping every crevice and corner of the waiting room. “There wasn’t any noise up here except for rats.” 

“Rats?” Bev asks incredulously. “I haven’t seen any rats in the building on my way up here.” 

“What’s taking Stan and Bill so long?” Richie asks, torn between wanting to run around to find Eddie and gluing himself to Stan’s side immediately. 

“Did you see anything on your way up here, Bev?” Mike’s still whispering, gaze flicking between them and the hall towards Eddie’s room. 

“No, I used a flashlight I found downstairs to come up but I didn’t see anything. Were you here the whole time, Mike?” She blinks to Richie and then around the room, none of them can focus on a specific spot at once and Richie’s heart rate keeps spiking for no reason other than the fact that Eddie might be here somewhere. 

But who knows what condition he’s in, if this is a dream after all then he’s not going to be his usual self. He’s gonna be covered in blood and filth, exactly how Richie left him. 

“Rich?” It makes him jolt, Stan’s got one of Bill’s arms over his shoulder while Ben is carrying the other arm. Bill’s head is hanging between his shoulders and he’s not moving his feet.

“Why isn’t he moving his feet?” Richie asks, demands more like but Stan shoots him a weird look before letting Mike take Bill from him as they rush over.

“He got hit in the head with a piece of ceiling tile.” Ben says, walking with Mike to set Bill in a chair. 

“How did that happen?” Bev asks, checking Bill’s neck for any bumps and examining his bleeding scalp. Eventually she shrugs and turns back to them with a raised brow. 

“He heard Richie yell his name and when he went towards the stairs the building shook, the tile fell and here we are.” Stan says matter of factly. 

“The building didn’t shake?” Bev draws the vowels out, looking between Mike and Richie for clarification. 

“It definitely shook downstairs, we thought the whole thing was going to come down on us.” Ben says and Stan nods once. “If you were on your way down to us, why’d you stop?” 

“Uh, well, I heard Eddie… scream my name?” Richie nods to Mike’s nod. “It was really loud, you didn’t hear it downstairs?” 

Stan and Ben look at each other, clearly weighing out a silent conversation before Stan sighs and turns to Richie.

“We thought we saw Eddie downstairs but the water-”

“Richie!” This time Mike really does get a hold of him, swinging his back right into Mike’s chest and leaving his feet sliding out from beneath him. Mike holds him there until he stands on his own again. “Hey, you don’t even know if it really was Eddie or where he could’ve possibly been.” He speaks quietly and directly to Richie only, his deep rumbling voice soothing over Richie’s racing heart. “Let’s get a plan started here, we don’t have much time and we’ve already wasted enough.” He directs to everyone else, clearly the second natural born leader of the group.

Richie can’t focus on the conversation forming around him much, he gets caught up on the word ‘manifest’ and it’s all over from there. He’s thinking about Eddie, if that’s how manifesting works, but Eddie never comes walking around the corner like he’s imagining. Bev snaps something and Mike and Stan snaps something back and before Richie can say anything there’s a sixth voice joining the party.

“You fucking morons, you absolute fucking idiots! Manifesting has never worked. How am I supposed to come home if you can’t even fucking hear me, goddamn turtle mother fucker. If I ever-”

“Guys?” Richie whispers but they’re all silent, Bev’s mouth is hanging open and Stan has his head in his hands. “Manifest Eddie.” 

He slips his eyes closed and thinks of the clothes Eddie wore to the Jade, resolutely avoids the next day entirely just focuses on the first time he laid eyes on Eddie again in decades. The way his hair was gelled back, the curving slant of his smile and the dimple that graces his cheek. He thinks about Eddie drinking white wine, something about red is good for the heart but white is good for fucking whatever else, he’d stopped paying attention at that point and just listened to the slight timbre of his voice. 

“Richie?” He can feel the air shift around him and when he blinks his eyes open he’s alone in the room. Eddie’s sitting directly across from him. “Holy shit, are you seeing me?” 

“Where’d the others go?” Richie whispers before his brain catches up. “Fuck, fuck, Eddie? Are you, like, really here?” He reaches out and immediately regrets it when Eddie shuffles away from the gesture. 

“You were here alone, Rich.” Eddie says slowly, watching Richie like he’s a feral animal. “I’m really here, I don’t know how exactly, I’ve been a little lost I guess.”

“No, Mike was with me first and then Bev-” and as he’s saying their names they seem to pop back into existence. He completes the list of their friends, with Bill still unconscious (and Richie is gonna give him so much shit for knocking out after already being asleep, fuck Inception this is so much more interesting than the movie portrayed). “Hey, there they are, where the fuck did you go?”

“Richie you literally disappeared!” Bev shouts. “One second you were there and the next it was like you dissolved into the air.” 

But no one is addressing Eddie even though he’s sitting directly across from Richie. Eddie isn’t even looking at them, just giving a weird look to Richie when he turns to talk to them.

“Can anyone else see Eddie?” Richie asks and rolls his eyes back when Eddie shakes his head. 

“Eddie’s here?” Ben asks, looking around the room.

“He’s literally sitting right here.” Richie throws his hands out. “No one can see him?”

“I can’t see them either.” Eddie says, but it’s quiet and scared. “I don’t know why you’re-”

Richie jolts up from the bed panting seconds before Mike, the sun already glaring into the room and the clock announcing it’s after nine already. Bev shoves the door open and stares at them both catching their breath, Ben and Bill standing behind her as the creak in Stan’s door echoes down the hall. 

“So that was definitely an interesting experiment, but what the actual fuck?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello hello!! I hope everyone is staying safe and pushing for police abolishment :)   
> it's been a real hot minute, like always, and I wanna thank everyone that's stayed with this fic and my unreliable posting schedules. I don't have much time to respond to comments but they mean so much to me and I appreciate everyone who takes the time to leave something behind for me (kudos, comments or bookmarks!)
> 
> In return for your everlasting patience I bring: a turtle's interference, ben's interference, a bit of lore with a small spat over a coma patient, suspicious myra is suspicious, ignoring of thoughts and feelings (but in a roundabout way bc richie), buying of a house, a memory box, an amazing lesbian sister and a slight hopeful upturn to our returning soap opera. 
> 
> Not going to lie this one kinda kicked my ass! I was having trouble keeping the flow and it gave me more stress than it's worth so I beg for forgiveness before I accept weakness :-) Richie is complex with what he wants to express on behalf of himself, I guess. Better luck next time future me!
> 
> Next chapter will deal a little heavily with the death Richie had seen for Mike and Eddie badgering Richie to stop being a self isolating asshole (in the inception-esque dreamscape that I promise I hadn't originally planned for yet am running wildly away with any implication of including Eddie in any way)

Richie brushes his teeth with a bottle of tequila. It’s not his proudest moment but he knows he’s not going to have another chance for a drink today and needs the feeling of the burn down his throat like he needs to breathe. It’s strange, like something takes over his brain and makes the decision for him despite it being his own hands holding the bottle in the mirror. He sighs and brings the bottle with him into the bedroom, Mike having left ten minutes ago with Stan after they all made sure the others were okay, but it’s surprisingly dark as if the sun has stopped existing. He can’t make out a single shape in the room, it’s almost like everything has just fallen from the earth while his back was turned. It jars him, his feet pause in the threshold and he reaches for the light switch just within reach from the bathroom door but there’s not even a flicker of the dull lamp. 

“ _YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE MESSAGE. DO NOT TRUST WHAT YOU SEE._ ”

The bottle slips from his fingers but there’s no noise of the drop, no sudden wetness over his toes, no rancid smell wafting through the fog. He feels safe, despite every clue that he should not feel this way, he feels like he has the answers that he’s looking for despite never asking the question. 

He asks anyways. 

“What does that mean?”

“ _THIS JOURNEY IS YOURS. YOUR FRIENDS ARE AWARE. THERE IS MAGIC STILL CIRCULATING. IT IS NOT ONLY MINE._ ” 

“What the fuck does that mean?” He snaps, blinking rapidly and still not being able to settle onto anything with distinction. It’s like he’s in a void, a dense nothingness swallowing him whole and he feels sick with it. 

“ _YOU WILL FIND THE TRUTH AT THE PLACE THAT MADE YOU._ ”

Then the sun is back and he has to shield his eyes from the onslaught. The bottle of tequila is sitting neck up on the floor and he kicks it with vigor. He has no fucking clue what that could mean, the place that made him? Is he dealing with some kind of cosmic bridge troll? Solve a fucking riddle and your friend gets his goddamn life back? 

He’s breathing harshly, anger flowing through his veins as fire and ice collide inside of him. He’s so fucking tired of mindfucks, tired of playing by the rules of some alien force that always seems to pit him against the world, against himself. He shoves the collection of shit he’s put on top of the dresser to the floor with a mild shout, turning and ripping his bag off the floor as if he’s going to hastily pack himself away and run out without notice again. 

Like he’s going to leave Eddie. Again. 

The thought makes him still, breath catching in an odd hiccup in his chest before a sob rips through. He wouldn’t, won’t, make that mistake again. There’s too many mistakes piling up around him, too many moments that should’ve brought something victorious out for him that he’d fucked before it could happen. Being honest with Eddie should’ve been a priority when he knew the whole thing was about facing your fear. It knew that attacking Eddie would kill Richie, knew it would make him weak, and so he did. Yet Richie lived. Out of everyone who deserved to live it surely wasn’t supposed to be him. 

Eddie was brave, he was honest, he accepted his faults and still tried to pull something from his ass to save their friends. Richie tried to be brave and got caught in the deadlights, where he saw the fucking future and still couldn’t bring himself to save Eddie. The one true time that Richie got mad instead of scared Eddie was already bleeding out. 

There’s a knock on the door and he jolts with it, looks around hastily before shoving his hair back from his face and opening the door wide, accepting his mess before he can be judged for it. Ben’s waiting just outside, his eyes never waver from Richie’s face and it releases something inside of him that Ben is genuinely looking for Richie and not observing the scene he just made. 

“Hey.” Richie croaks. 

“Hey yourself.” Ben says, his voice low but not pitying. “Can I come in?” 

So he steps from the doorway and closes it gently behind Ben’s back. He knows that Ben is taking the room in now but can’t be fucked to truly care about it. Richie hasn’t always had an explosive anger building inside of him at all times of the day, but there’s something about the way that Ben nods that says he understands. 

Richie can’t recall ever seeing Ben angry. His palms start sweating. 

“I wanted to talk to you about Myra.” He says and Richie goes cold. He doesn’t interrupt, just makes a vague hand movement for Ben to continue. “I think you should sit down with her again.”

“The fuck?” Richie nearly squawks. 

“Hear me out, real quick. So we’ve already started to try and unravel why she would’ve lied to you, right?” Richie was not present for those conversations so no, not right. “I think she might be a spy.” 

“Ben-” Richie isn’t going to fucking play this game right now, this is over the top bullshit and it’s just not-

“No, listen, let me just show you.” He pulls out a phone, Bev’s phone and Richie’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “After you left the night we told her the truth she wanted to stay in touch with Bev, too. With everything that was going on with her ex she had made a dummy Facebook account with which she accepted Myra’s friend request.” Ben thumbs the screen and scrolls. “Myra’s not even in the fucking country right now, Rich.” 

Richie shoots Ben a look as he accepts the offered phone, looking down at the picture of Myra with a woman who looks strikingly like her. The tagged location is somewhere in Montreal.

“That’s impossible…” _there is magic still circulating_ “She sat right across from me. She looked me in the eye, breathed the same air I was breathing.” 

“Okay, but what if it wasn’t her and just something… in the shape of her?” 

“You really think that something like that is possible, Ben? Seriously?”

“You really think something like that couldn’t happen? After everything that we’ve been through, the way It changed its shape to our greatest fears?”

“It’s dead.” Richie says finally, his eyes flicking between both of Ben’s with the same intensity he speaks with. _there is magic still circulating_

“We both know that, but we also both know that traces of It lasted for years even after we kicked Its ass the first time.” 

“We didn’t kill It the first time, Ben! Of course there were traces left. But when It died we all fucking felt it, don’t fucking lie to my face right now.” 

“You tellin’ me you haven’t felt anything since coming back here? Why else would Eddie suddenly be above ground? There’s something still here, we know it’s not the clown but-”

Richie lunges to the bathroom to puke, tequila burning his throat on it’s way back up. 

“Okay, okay, okay.” He pants into the toilet bowl. “There’s magic still circulating.” 

Ben makes a weird noise in the back of his throat.

“Puking give you some kinda celestial insight now or are you just finally listening to what I’m saying?”

“If you expect anything different from me then you better get me another bottle of tequila.” 

“Ask Mike, he’s the one you should talk about magic with.” 

“Is this ever gonna get any easier?” Richie asks, turning the tap on after flushing the toilet.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Ben shrugs. “Technically I was only supposed to tell you that Bill wants to try the dream thing again but you sounded like you needed the validation. Walls are paper thin, kinda glad only I heard you screaming.” 

“Screaming? When the fuck was I screaming?” 

Ben looks at him long and hard, probably relying on his bullshit meter to notify him if Richie is acting out of pocket but he seems to believe him enough to explain. Maybe it’s the actual horrified look that Richie knows he’s sporting, maybe it’s the tears building in his eyes that he’s steadfastly blinking away, whatever it is it causes Ben to give a small frown before continuing.

“‘The truth is where I was made’?” Ben asks, face pointedly blank while Richie feels his whole soul leave his body.

“Oh, fuck.” He sucks in sharp breaths, willing everything in his stomach to stay put. 

“Breakfast, boys!” Bev shouts through the door and they both jump slightly. Ben gives Richie a wry twist of his mouth before he’s out the door and thumping down the stairs to the voices of the others. 

They try again, because of course they do, Richie’s not entirely sure if it’s going to help but he’s not against maybe using it for some kind of insight. Bill blushes through breakfast when Stan makes a passing comment about making sure no one else is rendered doubly unconscious. Richie latches on to the joke from there, beating it to death until Bill eventually kicks him under the table. Myra calls Mike to say that she is dealing with some errands in Bangor, Ben watches Richie during the call but he stays particularly tight lipped on how he’s going to handle the Myra situation once asked. She tells them they should take today to themselves and Eddie. So that’s where they situate themselves, sneaking in two at a time to Eddie’s room every fifteen minutes to avoid speculation. Monica greets Richie when he first enters but she’s nowhere to be seen from then on. 

He sits farthest away from Eddie, not entirely understanding why he needs to keep a distance but knowing that that is best after all, content to watch Bev whisper to him as she pushes her fingers through Eddie’s growing hair. He doesn’t feel particularly tired just a sense of existential exhaustion but he doesn’t think that’s enough to truly test this dream world thing. He’s been entirely conscious and still thrown through a loop by some metaphysical being, he’s weary of the dreamscape now by wondering if it’s set up entirely for them to fail or being mindfucked the entire time.

Bill reins them in this time, licking his lips before he starts a new line of questioning that Richie sincerely appreciates the objectiveness of, regardless his snippy comeback. 

“I guess that we figured out yesterday that only one of us needs to be asleep for everyone else to see the dream.” A few pairs of eyes glance at Richie then back, he thins his lips in a facsimile of annoyance but continues to watch Bill. “We also found out that proximity does make a difference. We tune into the signals we pick up best, right?” 

“We’re not fucking radios, Billy.” Richie scoffs.

“But you c-cah-can’t deny that it’s true.” Bill shoots back, brows lowering over his eyes while he seems to bite back the continuance of his sermon. “I know this is not optimal-”

“You think being near Eddie is going to make it easier for him to be seen?” Stan asks quietly.

“I do.” Bill’s confident in his answer, looking amongst the faces around him. 

“Then it’s worth trying.” Beverly says quietly and Richie nods once along with her. 

“I want to bring up the turtle.” Mike says and Richie narrows his eyes down at the tile flooring, not wanting to jump to his first conclusion and hear just what Mike is thinking. “The turtle was always around, whether helpful or not, it was always where It was. If I read the text correctly then they might even be… brothers? If things like that even have sibling-esque relations, that’s beyond me, but there was lore that there’s always a greater power at play than the exact negative in reign.” 

“Exact negative?” Stan mouths, brows furrowed. “So, if the turtle couldn’t help us then what is this? Recompense?” He waves a hand at Eddie and blinks at Mike curiously. 

“Possibly. Motives have been investigated but documentation is still lacking, everything the Shokopiwah people showed me failed us when we tried. While they were correct about the deadlights and unity in battle, nothing else worked or made sense in the heat of the moment. Their legends never included the turtle in a mainframe sense and none of the original ancestors to fight It survived to explain in detail.”

“Buh-buh-but the turtle was included?” 

“In a way that those who were plagued with dreams of the deadlights were freed from their imaginary prisons.” 

Richie took stock of his friends with this information, when he got to Beverly and Ben his stomach dropped to his feet. Bev was watching Ben while Ben was considering Richie. Their gazes caught, Ben’s eyes were filled with a distant sort of curiosity while he kept his face carefully blank. Ben always had a good poker face, played it off like he truly never knew what was going on but maybe he was keeping his cards close to chest instead. Maybe he’d always played the silent but deadly part of their friend group, Richie had always considered it Stanley but Ben was blowing his cover pretty quickly. 

“No.” Richie says and Ben closes his eyes. “No, I know what you’re thinking but no. I don’t even know what it means.”

“We both know what it means, Rich.” Ben ignores Bill whipping his head around to look at them and Mike makes a considering noise. Someone sucks in a sharp breath and it’s all suddenly like nails on a chalkboard for him, grating and irritating while sending pricks of something unknown down his spine.

“I literally just said, like LITERALLY just said, I don’t fucking know what it means Ben!” He scrubs a hand across his face and looks to anyone for some modicum of help but the other losers are avoiding his gaze. “Y’all fucking kidding me right now?” 

“Rich, c’mon man, you can’t tell me that you don’t realize all of this is stemming from you?” 

“Oh, cool, great to know that I magically pulled my best friend back to the land of the living because everyone else could move on with their lives.” Richie barks a laugh and Mike’s head snaps up with a short lived glare. 

“Why is everything always an argument lately? Richie, w-wwwe know that you know m-muh-more about wuh-what’s going on than you’re gg-guh-giving and we ww-wwwere okay with ju-juh-juh-just being along for the ruh-rrrride but you gotta talk to us man-”

“What do I know more about, Bill?! Please enlighten me because Bev dropping by my house and passing on a message about a nightmare from Stan was the first time I got any kind of configuration that this shit was even happening.” 

“Can we not do this here? Seriously? This is not how we agreed to do this.” Stan turns to Bill but Bill only shakes his head. 

“Richie, you have to talk to us-”

“Obviously he’s looking real up to talking right now-”

“You didn’t hear him screaming--!”

“You didn’t check in on him while--!”

“It’s not a goddamn pissing contest--!”

“Wuh-wuhwhat if he’s right-”

Richie feels his blood pressure rising, these are supposedly his friends that are singling him out for something way beyond his fucking control. His mind is circling the shame drain by the time someone actually looks at him again, the argument continuing around him while cold sweat and goosebumps roll down his spine. Maybe he does know something more, something that the dreams have been telling him for a while. Maybe that’s true but he can’t quite put his finger on it the way Bev seems to think he has. A conversation would’ve been a better way to find out than an outright assault. 

He’s warped into staring down at the tops of his shoes, mind carefully but abundantly blank, a roaring sound in his ears preventing him from hearing anything that could influence a change in that. His hands are gripping the edge of the chair under his thighs and he’s doing his damndest to keep his breathing regular but it feels quite like razors are lining his lungs.

“You gave him a fucking panic attack, are you fucking happy?” Eddie shouts from over his shoulder. “Do none of you know subtlety? I mean jesus christ, how hard could it have been to just let Bill talk over him and-”

Richie snaps his head up, catching sight of Eddie and gasping slightly. He turns his head but there are no other losers in the room and the movement makes Eddie look down at him.

“You can see me?” His eyes are wide, hands reaching out like he wants to hold Richie’s face and examine it before they eventually drop back down to his sides, never making it higher than his hips. 

“I can hear you too, damn Eds.” He fakes rubbing his ears as if he’s in pain. “Been a while since I heard your voice that shrill, probably before your balls dropped.” 

“God, you are such an asshole.” Eddie sighs but there’s a wild smile on his face. 

“You were yelling at them, does that mean you can see the others now?” Richie still can’t see them. It’s weird, Richie can’t focus on the details, there’s only Eddie. Even the sun coming through the window looks wrong.

“No, but I could hear everything. Why are they bullying you for withholding information?” 

“Might’ve met our very own lord and savior turtle earlier, Ben might’ve heard the whole thing going down. Called me out after he said they’d already talked about whatever I’m holding back. I really don’t fucking know.” 

“Okay, okay, Rich, take it easy. You’ll work through it, right? You’ll piece together what the turtle told you?” Eddie was fucking _begging_ , Richie’d never heard it like this before. He was begging Richie to think about the message the turtle gave him. Something wasn’t adding up yet it seemed perfectly rational that Eddie would want to talk about the turtle, that he already knew what the turtle had told Richie.

“What’s happening, Eds?” 

“Think about it and then come find me again, okay?” His voice was soft, his face was soft. The light through the window came in softer than it ever had, setting Eddie’s face in sweet relief. His eyes are solemn as they track across Richie’s face and Eddie brings his fingers up to drag the pads of them across Richie’s jaw before they take hold to force Richie to look up at him.

It’s so close to how he wanted Eddie to touch him, so close to the dreams he’d force himself awake from. Eddie smiles down at him, thumb moving awfully close to his bottom lip as Eddie rubs his chin. He’s warm.

“Don’t be an idiot about this, okay? Tell them about it, let them help you think it over. You’ve always been ridiculously smart, Rich, but you’ve also always been stupid about this.” 

He blinks back into the room with everyone staring directly at him. He’s somehow transcended space and time twice today, the thought makes his stomach swoop in the worst way. He pushes his glasses up with the edge of his palm, blinks twice before nodding once and walking from the room without a second to spare. 

He’s not going to think about Eddie’s hands on him, not going to think about the tone of his voice or how it felt right to be seen by him. He’s thinking about a turtle, eyes knowing and glowing, as he bumps into a woman hurrying down the hall. 

“I’m sorry-” He catches the rest of the sentence in his mouth, teeth grinding in the process to halt the words as Myra glares up at him. His hands, which had come up naturally to avoid anyone falling, slip into his pockets. She glances down the hall, back to Richie’s face and thins her lips. When Richie turns back to the hall, Mike’s poking his head from the room and his eyebrows are arched confusedly. 

“I was just leaving.” Richie says, moves to step around her but stills when she moves with him.

“I was actually hoping to find you.” She says quietly, turning her shoulders towards Richie directly and ignoring the viewing party down the hall. 

“Oh, worm?” He says before shaking his head. “Fuck, okay, yeah. Let’s take this somewhere else?” 

She nods, glances back down the hall with a considering look on her face and then turns to follow him. He’s overly aware of her actions, the breaths she takes are measured and he thinks back to how Ben said the word ‘spy’. Richie’s worked on his poker face the last time he’s really needed to use it, he hopes that it’s actually doing something for him right now. He knows he can lie, but he doesn’t even want to get into any plausible deniability right now, not when he feels he’s on the cusp of something huge. They don’t speak on their way to the hospital cafe, Richie follows the smell of truly awful coffee and when they arrive she nods to a table and he points to the coffee stand. 

He’s got at most five minutes to get his thoughts in order, a complicated thing even on his best days, but he manages to at least clear his head before sitting down across from Myra. She’s got a manila folder with her and it has sweat prickling his neck before she can even explain what it is. 

Turns out it’s Eddie’s. She watches his face as she slips it onto the table and opens it, showing the birth certificate with both Sonia and Frank’s signatures, his legit social security card as well as any copies of it and hidden underneath receipts is the deed to their house. He’s wondering if these documents are even real, considering the real version of Myra has probably already shredded and burned them. Well, probably not the paperwork for the house, he wonders if magic can even go in depth like this.

“Why did you bring these here to me, Myra?” Richie sighs, slapping the folder closed but he keeps his hand over it protectively. Real or not, this is all he’ll have legally of Eddie’s. 

“I just started thinking, obviously he was hiding something from me. Something serious, that folder was in his car. He had everything he needed to leave, don’t you understand? He took this folder with him, Richard, the only thing missing from this folder is the will he made three years ago when I pressured him into finally getting life insurance.” 

Richie rubbed his left hand over his mouth before taking a sip of his coffee, he kept his face neutral, she was digging for something that not even Richie knew the answers to so he wanted to tread carefully. Especially if the woman in front of him wasn’t even the authentic Myra. Whoever, whatever, this person is they’re digging hard for something that Eddie hadn’t left behind. 

“Do you remember the night we told you the truth?” Richie asks calmly but Myra still narrows her eyes. She says nothing for long seconds and Richie’s sold on the idea of a spy. “Do you remember dinner?” 

She stares at him blankly before a smile takes hold on her face. Richie holds his blank stare despite the feeling crawling up his spine.

“How could I forget?” She says sweetly. “The night you told me you killed my husband.” 

He blinks away from her face, taps the folder twice before sliding it over to himself and grabs it as he stands. 

“Thanks for this, Myra. Guess I’ll be seeing you around.” 

When he walks out of the hospital, the sun is directly above the building, a high noon joke rattling around his head like a bird in a cage but the joke neither taking form or relaxing him the way he needs. He’s not shaken, not exactly, he’s dealt with worse and still overcome it. This just hollows him out, brings him to an edge that he’s visited frequently but also knew how to pull himself away from. It’s like it’s on the tip of his tongue, this knowing, something he’s never thought before but knows it very well. 

He thinks of the place that made him, the entire town that tried to swallow him whole and spit him into the mouth of the clown who’d finish the job they couldn’t. Thinks about swallowing and spitting before he has to shake his head and think more precisely on which of his old haunts made him. 

The arcade was sworn off of (at least being alone at the arcade was), the barrens where the clubhouse might still be holding itself together as a functioning hole in the ground, Neibolt where his life never became normal afterwards, the home he grew up in where his parents put every amount of love and adoration they had into every inch of brick and mortar. None of it makes sense, at least not entirely, if he’s being honest he’s already where the truth should be. Derry made him who he is, controlled his psyche beyond his knowledge and kept him trapped far longer than he had thought. 

His breathing starts rattling in his chest and he finds himself spinning in a circle of hospital, hospice and strip malls that were installed in the late 90s. There’s too much of a shock factor playing through all of this, the only- species, entity, being?- thing that’s ever made him feel this much of a loose cannon is certainly dead. He thinks about magic, what he encountered in the deadlights and moves his feet with his thoughts. 

It's a strange feeling; being at home and a complete stranger at the same time. Like he’s the masked criminal breaking through the window that sees his own childhood photos on the mantle. He makes his way down Main St, his feet taking him down the alley he used to speed through on his bike to the backstreet that would take him home. Memory senses, strange synapses flying through his head. 

He stumbles across the first tree he’d climbed after meeting Eddie Kaspbrak, stares up into the sky at it’s beautiful branches reaching across the clouds and sighs. He can’t say that he ever stops thinking about Eddie, that particular thread is endless and Richie would rather a lobotomy before he ever stops it. He can see Eddie in his dreams, can talk to him and he’d bet good money he’d feel him if he ever touched him. But he can also see Eddie when his panic attack reaches defcon 5 levels, apparently not even that far. 

There’s a for sale sign in his old front yard, an open house for today that ends in half an hour. Without even considering the consequence he squares his shoulders and travels the four mailboxes down. He thinks he can pass off how long he stands outside as admiring the lawn but it’s patchy and brown compared to the manicured lawns next door. Mr. Wimbly’s granddaughter, Heather, comes tromping out like she always used to when Richie was passing by.

“Long time, no see, stranger.” She smiles as she siddles up by him, leans back to actually look up at his face. 

“Seems like, huh?” He says quietly. “How long have they been trying to sell it?” 

“Few years. Nice family, son died little over a year ago. Total tragedy at the carnival. How’s your mom holding up? Everyone came into the church for a service for your father, real shame about that.” 

“My dad was jewish.” He says quietly. “But mom’s holding on. Mandy keeps up with her more than I can.” 

She smiles wide and punches his shoulder a little. “That’s riiiiiiight, Dickie Tozier grew up into a big Hollywood star.” She twangs her voice and acts like she’s chewing on a piece of wheat like they did when they were 6 and playing cowboys. 

He chucks a small laugh, thinking back on the days of Dickie before Trashmouth. Before Eddie. 

Is that the whole point of this? That he had a life before Eddie so he’ll surely have one after? What kinda mindfuck-

“You planning on staying around town for a while?” She’s looking up at the house, not paying Richie much attention and a thought occurs to him. 

“Yeah, I have some stuff to take care of. Don’t know how long I’m staying.” He shuffles his feet and looks down to her. “Hey, when we all packed up and left, was there anything that we left behind that you might’ve seen tossed out by the street?” 

“If you’re asking if I have half of your beat up comics the answer is no.” She rolls her eyes up at him. “But if you’re asking if I’ve got a box in the basement labeled ‘Tozier’ the answer is yes. Are you gonna take the grand tour?” She points to where a realtor is herding a few people from the door. 

“Yeah, actually, think I just might. Meet me out here in a few?” 

The house is entirely different on the inside. Richie’s sure that after his and Mandy’s childhood the house would have to be gutted, what with his gangly group of friends and Mandy’s gymnastics obsession. It still feels like home, surprisingly. The stairs are the same though he knows the banister has been replaced, the fifth stair from the top still has the squeak that Richie often said came from Eddie’s mom chasing him up them to the bedroom. 

He wonders if the shit he hid in the attic is still there. He takes a deep breath outside of his bedroom before passing it completely and heading back downstairs. The realtor is waiting for him in the kitchen, the counters and cabinets having been replaced but the appliances still looked like the same ones Richie watched being installed in 83. 

“So how much is the down?” He asks, checking his pockets for his wallet. 

The realtor looks at him quizzically before sliding a set of papers over to him. All he sees are blurred numbers before the red letters at the top finally stop spinning in his focus. The family was foreclosed on, shortly after It killed their kid at the carnival. Jesus. Fuck Derry. 

“Right, yeah, okay, so it’s gotta be upfront then?” He asks, filling out the application sheets and checking for a money wiring address for the company. 

“Are you sure you want to do this? The market for this neighborhood has dropped considerably since the nineties. It hasn’t seen a spike in actual decades and the house is in need of some severe repairs.” The realtor is nice enough, concerned that their newest client might be biting off more than he can chew. 

Richie finds the wire transfer address and asks how much they’d need for him to put into escrow since this isn’t a normal offer/buyer transaction. He walks out of the house and down the path to Heather with the assurance that the realtor is setting up the paperwork as soon as they get to their office. 

“No shit? You’re buying your childhood house?” Heather looks at him like he’s grown four heads but he’s not stopping to think about this right now.

“Sure, even Hollywood assholes gotta build up their credit with rundown homes in rural parts of the country.” 

His phone rings shrilly from his pocket and he waves Heather away towards the house next door while he fishes it out. It’s his sister, who he’d promised a phone call today to, which he’d failed to remember. She’s either pissed or worried and he’s not entirely sure he could handle either but of everyone to know Richie the best she might be able to lead him to where he needs to be.

“Hey, Mandy,” his voice is a high, anxious sound. “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. I know you’ve been dealing with a lot-”

“Rich.” Mandy sighs. “It’s okay. I just wanted to check up on you, usually when you drop off the grid it’s because-”

“Right-oh!” He cheers, wincing at her next sigh. “I promise this is not related to that and that I was entirely sober when I made the most recent of my bad mistakes.” He shuts his eyes with such force his glasses fall to the tip of his nose.

“Okay.” She draws out the vowels, there’s a shuffling noise and then a door closing. “Care to explain that to me?” 

“Imight’veboughtourchildhoodhouse.” 

“You’re in Derry? What the fuck are you doing in _Derry_ , Rich?” 

“So, long story, but, do you remember Eddie Kaspbrak?” 

“Vaguely? I remember a kid with an inhaler that you tormented.” 

“Right, yes, tormented, spot on. Well, he died and then… un-died.” 

“What the fuck did you just say? He came _back_ to life? In… in Derry?” She sounds scared, Richie wishes he had just lied. 

“Uh, yes. Why is Derry the fear factor part?” 

“Well, Greta used to talk about how a few towns over there was a place where animals that died came back to life but… all fucked up.” 

“Wait, what the fuck did _you_ just say? What fucking town was this?” 

“Think it started with an L or something, anyways that’s not the important part. How do you know Eddie isn’t gonna come back like a… murderous zombie or something?” 

Richie pinches the bridge of his nose. “Mandy, jesus fucking christ, can we stay focused on my bad decisions?”

She snorts and mumbles “like being in Derry isn’t the cause instead of the effect.” She sighs with a huff and then tells him to continue. 

“So, I bought our house. Like legitimately bought our house. I’ll have keys within a week.” 

“And you did this because Eddie died and then lived?” 

“I honestly was hoping you could tell me why.” 

“Gee, Richard! Let’s take a deep look into that! Is it your independency issues? Or maybe it's a midlife crisis? Lord knows you’ve let yourself go enough.” 

“Okay, tone the sarcasm and venom way down please. I’ve been in a perpetual panic all day. Eddie’s wife is… not who she says she is and it’s psychological warfare trying to keep my head above it all.” 

“.... Wife?” She whispers. “No fucking way that kid got a wife.” 

“Mandy, you left Derry and still managed to snag a hot wife. Don’t discredit him.” 

“No, no. Hey, so, are _you_ okay? Are your friends with you?” 

“I’m fine, actually. Totally okay. Five people keeping an eye on Richie seventy-five percent of the time.” 

“You’re lying and I love you but you’re a terrible liar. It’s okay if you’re not okay, you know? This is an extremely difficult situation. Okay, so you bought our house. Okay, okay okay. Wow. Is the step in the stair still weird?”

“So weird, sounds like the rubber duck boots you used to wear now.” She huffs a laugh. 

“How unfortunate. You gonna set up the dryer in the basement so you can shoot pucks at it when the ground gets too icy?” 

“Oh my god, how could I ever forget that? Dad fucking laughed his ass off when mom started screaming. Stan couldn’t come over for a week. I had to throw newspapers for three summers to afford a new dryer.” 

“So maybe going home is working for you then.” She says quietly. “Are you finding yourself there? Or just remembering?” 

“I didn’t know it was a soul search kinda journey until I got here, I guess.” 

“There always was some kinda magic about that small town.” She sounds wistful, caught in remembering. Maybe that’s what he’s supposed to do, to find where he was made he has to find himself. “Remember Sissy Slader?” 

Sissy Slader tried to kiss Richie in front of their parents at a Fourth of July barbecue. It ended in her brother Paul chasing Richie all the way to Bassey park where Richie hid like a bridge troll for hours. Eddie found him right before the sun set and they watched the fireworks together from the kissing bridge. It was totally normal for two dudes, friends, to hang at the kissing bridge to watch fireworks. No homo in sight. He sighs into the phone.

“How’s mom doing?” 

“Nice diversion. She’s okay, today the jell-o was green so she used it to finish painting her boy peeing into a fountain picture. That only got her three warnings, next time she does something odd they’re not letting her come to bingo night.” 

“She’s the ultimate troll. I wish she’d lurk Reddit all day long, that’d be my entire comedy set. Just mean things my senile mother has said on the internet.”

“If you profit off our mother I will castrate you.” She laughs. “You’re such an ass yet somehow I miss you.” It brings a smile to his face.

“I miss you too. You and Taylor will have to come down once I’ve got the keys to the house. Heather Wimbly’s still around, apparently she’s got a box of shit we left behind.” 

“Oooooh, Heather. She was obsessed with you, dude, it was embarrassing. I’ll just _bet_ she’s got some of your forgotten boxers.” 

“I fucking hope so, haven’t had a chance to do laundry yet. Gotta have something to wear to bed, right?” 

“You’re a quack.” She hoots. “If you can fit into your middle school boxers I will eat my entire fist.” 

“Okay, but just know that you literally asked for this.” 

“Alright, dickface, go see what Heather’s kept around. Call me tomorrow, okay? In the morning? Mom misses you too.” 

He says goodbye and feels warm all over, the panic that he knows is waiting to crash back in feels miles away and if he doesn’t think too hard he can slip through the next few hours untouched. Heather’s waiting by the front door and she offers him a lemonade as he follows her through the threshold.

“I went and got the box while you were on the phone, figured the moldy basement wouldn’t set the right aura for some memory digging.” She smiles. “I’m gonna get started making lunch, let me know if you need anything.”

And she just leaves him to it, alone in her home with no worries. Because she remembers him now, but not before they had killed It, she remembers what a loser he was and can’t possibly worry about him pulling something stupid in her house. Small town magic 2, Richie Tozier 0. 

The box is mostly deteriorating and the papers sitting on top inside are no worse for wear. A few photobooth strips of the losers from the arcade are protected underneath one of Mandy’s old journals. Twenty seven years or no, any kind of dirt on Mandy is good dirt. A few of his dad’s old business cards, not one but _three_ old ratty pairs of Richie’s boxers (which he immediately snaps a picture of to send to Mandy), an old battery powered plasma ball lamp, the left shoe to his favorite pair of Converse that he’d thrown a burn party for in college when he realized he only had the right, his broken Walkman and a tape inside. The tape had Eddie’s neat handwriting on, dedicating the tape to Richie but he doesn’t remember ever listening to this one. He took all his other tapes with him when they moved, he couldn’t remember whose handwriting it was that delicately listed the tracks on it but the ones with the careful writing always ended up being his favorites. 

He packs the box back up, deciding he’ll just take the whole thing, but Heather isn’t in the kitchen and he doesn’t want to stay longer than necessary so he slips out the door with a faint click. He doesn’t think he could go back to the hospital, it’s been made clear that they can pull their dream hoodoo voodoo without him strictly having to be there and he doesn’t want to be within feet of anything Myra could sink her teeth into just yet either. So he walks back, cursing himself for walking in the first place but refuses to admit that driving with his mindframe probably wasn’t safest to begin with, and dumps the box in the trunk of the rental car still sitting at the hospital. 

He takes the tape from the Walkman and heads the opposite direction, praying the electronics stores is still in business and in the same plaza it always was. 

Derry may be a magical (hah!) town but luckily some things never change. The same family owns it even, instead of some corporate bullshit Radio Shack wannabe. He finds his outdated products immediately and throws another prayer into the universe. He feels like he’s taking steps into the right direction. It’s like a grieving process almost, _almost_.

He had to remember there was a version of him that had never known Eddie. He found evidence of this life but it was also mixed with the evidence of a life filled with Eddie. He can’t focus enough to think about what it could mean that they felt so seamlessly entwined. He was, is and always will be Richie Tozier, but there was once a time where he was Dickie Tozier just as there was (is) a time where he’s Trashmouth Tozier. 

He flows, connects, divides and reemerges as the same. He’s a constant. He creates a space to be lived in, to fill with the best feeling he’s ever remembered feeling and that’s happiness. Keeping his friends laughing, smiles on faces and sweetly salty tears of joy. He’d never felt more like himself than he did with the losers. With Eddie. 

He thinks he maybe understands that the place where he comes from isn’t a physical location but a feeling, a bond tethered to his very core. He’s working these thoughts with every step he takes, pulling himself closer to the townhouse with every breath. He’s spent time looking for something that was within him all along, he’s the truth. Or at the very least, he’s capable of knowing the truth. 

He makes it to his room, closing the door gently behind him despite neither of the rental cars being the parking lot downstairs, and makes only as far as the corner of the bed before he’s pulling the tape from his pocket and the tape player from the plastic shopping bag. A silent breath as he hopes with all of his heart that the tape wasn’t as damaged as the rest of the box. There’s sharp static and then a wheezing cough, the kind Eddie gave before an asthma (panic) attack.

“Richie!” High school Eddie sighs in his ears. “I hope I got this tape to you on time, lord knows I went through a whole box of them and none of them were- anyways. You better not fucking forget me, not like-” a cough, “not like Bill or Bev or… Stan.” 

He’s got tears in his eyes just listening to the desperate undercurrent in Eddie’s otherwise nonchalant voice. 

“You’re my best friend, Rich.” Eddie near whispers. “You better kick ass in college, don’t get too distracted by girls because you already know my mom’s the jealous type.” He laughs weakly at the poor joke. “I hope you send postcards and pictures, I’d love to see what California looks like for you.” 

He thinks that might just be the end of the tape, several long seconds of Eddie’s faint breathing before a soft “I’ll miss you” and the player clicks with the end of the tape. It’s so much yet nothing at all, just Eddie bidding his farewell memorialized on tape forever. But, but the sad factor is that this was in a box of things that Richie had either forgotten or left behind and he knows damn well that if Eddie had made a tape for him and got it to him on time that he’d have held onto it long after Derry. 

So he’s not the answer but he’s on the right path. It’s a gut feeling, Eddie nearly begging him to dissect his brain to genius this one out but he’s not entirely sure he can. He’s always been better with what’s written on paper, emotions have always been a distant land of trickery for him much less the entirety of repressed memories that he still can’t make himself think through. Sounds like a trap that an omnipresent turtle laid for him to uncover some magic scheme. 

The ceiling seems to be giving his gaze enough answers lately anyways, his lids lower slowly over the minutes until he’s dropping off into sleep while throwing caution to the wind when he reminds himself he might catch a glimpse of Eddie.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two updates in the same month, I'm almost returning to normal!!
> 
> if you're still following this story can you please leave a comment? i'm not entirely sure if anyone is still even looking at this lmao. please let me know if anything seems ooc or if there's any errors (or if you just wanna tell me your favorite color, shape or fruit that'd be cool too just anything) 
> 
> OKAY so I stopped right where I did because I got into some really heavy racism stuff with Mike and with everything going on I didn't think now is the right time to post that. That being said, BLACK LIVES STILL MATTER and I want the entire country to burn for what happened not only to Breonna but every single person who never got the justice they deserve. 
> 
> any warnings I can give for this would include: brief racist imagery (in the shape of a mannequin being dragged by a car), richie pukes but i didn't get detailed in it, uhhhh i guess if you notice anything else then throw me a comment and i'll add it up here :-) 
> 
> this might be a little confusing but i promise it'll get better soon (we're getting close to the end whenever I decide that is l m a o )

When Richie wakes up it’s dark outside, the alarm clock is still on the floor ten feet away from the dresser and he can hear Bev and Ben mumbling next door. There’s messages on his lock screen that he has to squint to focus on but rewards none of them with immediate responses. He stumbles to the bathroom and showers in a daze, he’s trying to remember any dreams he could’ve had or if he’d seen Eddie even in just the corner of his consciousness but nothing comes to him. He also decides to think about that later, pushing off any cause for panic and forgetting the incident of celestial turtle bullshit that’s still technically haunting him. 

He’s got the room put back together and all of his shit packed by the time someone else hears noise coming from the room. The knock doesn’t startle him but he feels like he was almost dreading it to begin with. He expects a horde of angry friends, pitchforks in hand and ready to call him out again but what he gets is Stan and Bev. Stan’s hair is a mess to his standards, like he’d been gripping it and the tight curls have loosened from the stress. Bev’s gripping her hands tight in front of her pink night robe, hair shoved up in a messy ponytail and faint black smudges from where she’d removed her mascara blot around her eyes. 

“We told everyone to give you some space, at least for today.” Bev says quietly, she looks embarrassed and Richie really could’ve done without this conversation. He knows an explanation is waiting, from everyone and especially himself, but he’s not ready to even begin processing the information that he doesn’t know and comparing his own notes to it. 

He steps out of the door to let them inside the room and tries to tell himself he didn’t notice the looks on their faces when they looked around. It still smelled like premier tequila, the bed looked like he’d been thrashing around in it for hours and his sock was over the lamp (he’s not entirely certain just how that one happened but it’s his mess).

“Yeah, great, thanks.” He sighs. “Look, I actually kinda need to talk to you about something so-”

“Are you leaving?” Stan asks, running his fingers over the zipper of the duffle on the bed. 

“Yes, but not- not far.” He paces around the room like he’s looking for the small things he might’ve dropped and certainly will forget as soon as he steps down the stairs. “I bought my parents house for some fuckin’ reason.”

The room is quiet, no one even taking a deep breath before they start talking. Richie risks a glance and both Stan and Bev are sharing an odd look. Again he’s regretting this conversation but he knew realistically that he couldn’t sneak out of the townhouse, especially without leaving any kind of goodbye. His friends might be suspicious of whatever else he’s supposed to know but they’re still his friends, they still deserve for him to act like a friend. 

“You been drinking today, Rich?” Bev asks carefully, like soothing a snarling cat. His stomach swoops to his feet and his back is suddenly freezing cold. The twitch in his hand, the shift of his jaw, all of the little ticks from his body that crave a drink make a slight appearance but he steels himself.

“No, actually.” He points to the tequila stain in the carpet. “Lost taste for it this morning. I’m telling you that I bought my old house because that’s where I’m gonna be staying. It just… happened. 

Stan and Bev share a look before Stan blinks back to Richie. He’s well aware he’s being observed and Stan makes no point to hide what he’s thinking from his face. It’s shocking, seeing the emotions flit across his eyes and mouth while he processes Richie and begins to form opinions and thoughts on what he’s seeing. Idiosyncrasies and all, Stan usually kept the best poker face so Richie’s a little awed at seeing him so open.

“Do you want to be alone?” He asks, lifts a hand up to the room and wags a finger. 

“Well, I don’t really want to go through whatever it was that we were arguing about earlier.”

“That’s not what I asked you. Do you want to be alone?” Stan tilted his chin down and peered up at Richie, raising his eyebrows and thinning his lips. “I don’t want to take your choices away from you, so either we give you allotted alone time or someone stays with you.”

“There're too many odd variables working against and around us right now, Rich.” Bev isn’t watching him as intently as Stan is but it’s a near thing. “We’re all trying to be safe about this considering we don’t actually know anything that’s happening. If you need alone time then take it but don’t leave us behind, we’ve always been stronger together.” 

The reminder feels like a key sliding home in a lock. Together they were always more than enough, each bringing the other something they lacked individually. Not unlike a puzzle but that was never Richie’s favorite metaphor. He barely thought about any of them while he was traipsing around their old stomping grounds earlier and that causes sweat to prick around his forehead. He doesn’t allow himself to say that he was forgetting, because he was actually just avoiding the idea that they were mad at him, but it certainly felt like it. 

He blinks his focus to Stan once again and sighs. 

“I’d prefer not to be alone but I don’t necessarily wanna be jumped for withholding information that I was not aware I knew at all.” 

“We’d like to talk about that with you, actually. Not tonight, but soon enough we must talk about the things we know and what we’re going to do from here.” Stan leaves no room for argument, as if Richie wasn’t exhausted and could make a compelling argument against him either way. 

“Sure, fine, not tonight. I’m checking out and breaking into my house, so who’s coming with me?” 

Beverly gives him a bright eyed grin whereas Stan drops his head back on his shoulders and sighs at the ceiling. Bev decides to stay back with the others to explain and promises she’ll bring everyone over in the morning, she gives him a wink before she closes her door behind her. Stan takes him time repacking his bags while Richie paces the lobby. He hasn’t seen any employees here in any of the times he’s stayed, both of his rooms were booked online with a credit card so he never had a reason to stay to find someone and never really wanted to if he was being honest. But there’s a card on the front desk with a phone number for customer service and he figures why not since he never put a checking out date when he booked the room. 

The phone rings so long he thinks he’s gonna be disconnected, the rings themselves seem to last longer than normal until he’s finally connected to someone.

“Derry Townhouse front desk, how can I help you?” Unmistakably female, quiet and monotonous. The tone speaks professionalism of the no bullshit type but the lack of greeting has him assuming inexperience due to either lack of customer flow or training. Either way he’s standing at the literal front desk and no one else in the fucking lobby. 

“Uh, yeah, I’m at your front desk and no one’s here? I’d like to check out of my room, please.” 

“Are you in the lobby or in the front desk building? Where I’m standing there’s no one here either.” It sounds like a joke, her tone is lilting and light, but Richie huffs in annoyance, despite everything he’s already trying to wrap his head around the front desk attendant wants to be funny. He pushes his glasses up to his hair and sighs. 

“You have a front desk building?” He asks, surely sounding as ready for death as he feels. 

A door opens behind the counter he’s leaning against and a blonde woman pops out with a phone pressed to her ear. She gives him a big smile while making a show of hanging up on him. 

“Nope! But we do have secret tunnels.” She pulls a laptop from a locked drawer and starts pulling up his reservation after asking for his last name. “There a reason you’re leaving us so early? Says here last time that you stayed nearly two weeks.” She gives him a pouty smile. 

“Just bought a house.” He sighs. He catches Stan walking down the stairs from the corner of his eye and with him is Mike. He slides over his credit card when prompted and accepts the invoice receipt when it prints. 

“Thanks for staying with us, Richie, hope we see you again soon.” She winks at him, her whole face twitching with it and it pulls a small laugh from him as he nods and turns towards his friends. 

“Richie, I just wanted to say-” Mike starts, his eyes hold a somber glow and his mouth is pulled down and Richie _cannot_ deal with this right now.

“No harm no foul, Mikey.” Richie waves off the awkwardness settling in the air and blinks at Stan’s raised eyebrow and doubtful face. “I’m gonna assume Stanny told you about my most recent purchase in which I do not technically own yet but am still going to break into?” Mike nods. “Perfect, you’ll know where I’ll be then.” 

“Was kinda hoping there’d be an invite in there somewhere.” Mike cracks, his smile slips through momentarily before he blinks and it’s gone. “I know there’s a lot of shit going on up here-” he taps Richie in the forehead, “but we really do only want the best for you. Eddie, too, but you’re not lesser because of what’s going on.” 

“I think we can all agree that Mike has always been good at secret keeping.” Stan says, his tone slightly bitchy but the warmth in his eyes betrays him. “So I think Bev and I are going to pass tonight onto Mike.” 

Richie holds his breath, waiting for the other shoe to fall but it never does. Mike makes a joke about being good with a crowbar, to which Stan replies with Richie’s notorious affinity with baseball bats and it’s all… fine. It’s okay. They’re still including him, despite him fucking off for the entire day, which honestly shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does but he’s still cautiously walking on the eggshells that he’s made himself feel was there. There’s thin ice and then there’s free falling, he’d been thinking he was closer to rock bottom than he actually is and the knowing of just how far he’s left to go is paralyzing in a dysfunctional way. 

He knows what he needs to do, but can he make himself do it? Can he make the cake, perfect it and _eat_ it too? 

So he waits for Mike to grab a few things from his room and meet him outside the townhouse. It’s a muggy night, lungs filling with thickly humid air and making his back feel sticky. Not quite as oppressive as the night at the Jade, but close. Temperatures and memories are a wild comparison, remembering the sweat dripping down his face as he looked up into Eddie’s face and watched the _fearpainanguish_ flood across, the blood mixing with salty perspiration as he flung himself across the cavern and right to Eddie’s side, the slide of blood and tears through his hands on his chest trying to staunch the bleeding from both sides of his body. 

It hadn’t felt like a warm summer night, it’d felt like a melting horror story. He shivers when Mike steps besides him and blinks up at the sky for a few seconds. 

“D’you think this town will ever change?” He asks, already knowing the answer would be negative but Mike seems to have a hint of optimism regardless of his actual opinion on anything that matters. 

“Doubt it, but here’s hoping.” He lips a smile, more just spreading his lips across his face than actually curving them. “You really bought your parents place?” 

“Yeah!” He sighs out. “Yeah, uh, it was actually really spur of the moment, go figure. But-” he shrugs, “it felt like a good decision.” 

They start walking towards the house, Richie mindlessly talking about the key changes he’d seen earlier and things that’d have to be repaired before he could do anything with them. He skirts around the subject of what he’ll do with the house once he leaves for his actual house, can’t even think about selling it or really imagine living in it more than his stent here. Turns out that they don’t need to break into the house at all, Heather left an envelope with his name on it by the front door. Her key that the realtor had given her for “emergencies” was inside with a “welcome to the neighborhood (again)” note that Mike finds especially funny. 

“Looks like Heather still has a soft spot on little Dickie Tozier.” 

“Ain’t nothin’ little about Dickie.” He shoots, pushing the door in and turning the hall light on. It’s nostalgic in a very strange way, he’s never seen this house devoid of clutter and life. His memories of this house were always so vibrant, sharply in focus that he could close his eyes and picture it perfectly. He had memorised his mother’s decor, depending on the seasons certain things moved around and found homes in closets to allow other tacky decor. He had her Raggedy Ann and Andy collection in his bathroom closet for two months when he was thirteen. After that ill fated summer he took them to the dump and set them on fire, she had bitched for months before giving up on ever finding them. 

“Wow.” Mike breathes behind him. “It’s… uh, wow, being here just brought back, like, so many memories.” 

Richie turns and raises an eyebrow. “I think that was the point.” But he sounds unsure when he says it. 

They make their way further through the house, turning on lights as they go and Mike talks about seeing what Richie meant about replacing things. No water damage, that either of them can detect, but still some worrying marks that seem to come from behind the walls. This house is older than most homes in Derry, it was sixty years old before Wentworth had bought it up and repaired it, but it doesn’t feel any different from the other homes on the street. It’s not misplaced or sore sighted, it’s just as cozy as he remembers and it strikes him odd that he feels this way about a place that housed all of his anxiety, terror and anger. 

“Seriously only thought I was going to be here tonight, I didn’t plan ahead for company so… sorry about having to sleep on the floor.” 

Mike nods but he doesn’t seem perturbed. “I figured, we can buff out the sleeping arrangements tomorrow.” 

He makes a mental grocery list, Richie turns off all the lights but the ones in the kitchen before they settle on their backs in the living room. They talk gently for an hour about sleepover memories. 

“Remember when your mom finally rented Sleepaway Camp for us and Mandy made you almost piss yourself when she jumped out in a sheet?” Mike laughs quietly. 

“I most certainly did piss myself, just not enough to make a scene.” Richie laughs back. “She was obsessed with you and Stan the most, it was weird.” 

“She wasn’t obsessed, Rich, she’s only a few years younger than us. She just wanted to hang out.” 

“Sisters are gross, Mikey, never have one.” Mike huffs a laugh before flipping him the bird and turning to stare at the ceiling. 

Eventually Mike’s soft snores help him pull in sleep. It takes a while for him to fall in deep enough to dream of anything substantial but when he seems to materialize somewhere the room is musty and grim. There’s a few oil lamps lit, light flickering in the corners of his eyes but never in focus. He knows he’s in a barn, the barn, and it settles like stone in his stomach. He blinks upwards, to the loft and hears soft footsteps before Eddie’s peaking over and seemingly sighing in relief.

“Mike got here an hour ago then disappeared.” 

“You saw him?” 

“Yeah, but he couldn’t see or hear me.” Eddie’s petulant about it, kicking some hay off the ladder before descending. 

“He should be back soon, hopefully, I don’t know.” Richie scrubs a hand over his face. 

Manifesting is a weird thing, especially like this. Something that has no apparent rules or regulations just a simple Don’t Fuck This Up by a cosmic turtle. Mike steps into the barn and sighs. 

“This gets fucking weirder every time.” Mike looks around Richie, squinting and then blinking to a different spot. “Is Eddie here?” 

Eddie sighs from his lean against a beam. 

“Sir Pissy had indeed joined us tonight.” He affirms with his British voice. 

“That’s the fucking worst one.” Eddie snaps. 

Mike just nods and decides to go up the ladder and claims he’s looking for an old family box that was stashed away up there. Richie blinks at Eddie and they both shrug at each other before they both look separate ways. Things stay pretty quiet until Eddie speaks again. 

“You know, I met Myra in my third year at college? We dated until graduation, broke up until three years later when I got my first big promotion at the firm. My mom adored her.” Richie chokes, spluttering and waving off Mike’s concerned questions. 

“And what? That was enough to drop to your knee right then?” Eddie’s face sours quickly. 

“Believe it or not but I did love my fucking wife at some point in our relationship.” Eddie sits on the workbench and crosses his arms while glaring right into Richie’s soul. 

“I sure fucking hope so.” Riche mumbles, looking anywhere but at Eddie. He doesn’t understand the blunt broach of the topic, doesn’t want to dive deeper than Eddie just thinking about his wife, can’t stand the idea that maybe he got a little too hopeful. It was a quiet kind of hope, the one that snuck up on him and rendered him entirely _whacked_ when he realized that Eddie basically told him he didn’t love Myra. 

He blinks his eyes harshly and thinks of the things that Myra’s said and done in the matter of a year. Thinks about Ben showing the real Myra’s facebook page, that Bev probably kept more in contact with Myra than Richie actually had. Puppets, pulled by strings and voiced by-

Mike makes an “a-ha!” up in the loft so Richie turns his face there instead of the spot four feet away from Eddie’s shoe. Richie goes to ask what Mike found but Eddie cuts in before he could even open his mouth. 

“That’s not Myra. The, uh, the thing that’s visiting me. It’s not Myra.” Richie chokes for a second time, rolling his eyes into his head and coughing harshly. 

“What the fuck does that mean?” He snaps out and flinches at Eddie’s flinch. He clenches his hands and shoves them into his pockets, doesn’t trust himself to ask again or say literally anything else. It only confirms what Ben had been trying to say, only confirms that Richie’s already well out of his wheelhouse once again in the middle of Derry and no idea how to get the fuck out unscathed. 

“It’s not her.” He shrugs and looks off to his right. He sighs heavily and shrugs again, like he’s trying to push off Richie’s inquisitive stare. Richie huffs a laugh and it holds more sound when Eddie turns his glare on him full throttle. He gives a short look back before Eddie rolls his shoulders and stares off again.

Mike’s watching Richie closely, he can feel his gaze burning into the side of his face. But Eddie won’t turn his head to look at him again and it sets a buzz in his jaw that he has to clench around. 

“How do you know?” He tests.

Eddie glares over at Richie now, anything better than the heated avoidance moments before. “Do you trust me?” He asks, just as testily. 

“With my fuckin’ life.” He answers, it sounds a little hurt but not even Mike makes a comment. A flicker of a smile passes Eddie’s face before he tamps it down with a severe set to his brows. Richie wants to pat himself on the back for finally saying the right thing, knows that by the way Eddie’s lips thin he knows it too.

“Then _trust_ me when I say it’s not her.” Eddie says firmly, waving Richie off when he opens his mouth again. So Richie huffs and turns to stare up at Mike’s intrigued face. They watch each other for a minute before Mike picks up the gas can behind him and shakes it at Richie.

“Wanna tell me what we’re doing here?” He shakes the can again and the noise of the gas sloshing inside rings in his ears for a few moments. “I sure as shit didn’t dream this up, so what’s the objective.” 

“Richie, tell him.” Eddie sighs, picks at his nails before making a disgusted noise and hiding his hands under his thighs. He only glances at Richie every couple of words, never staying focused on him for too long and it burns, it burns him so bad that he can’t seem to keep Eddie no matter what. “Tell him what’s happening, tell him about the turtle.” 

Richie ignores him and shrugs at Mike. “Wish I knew.” 

Eddie groans and stands from the bench slowly, he keeps looking at Richie, trying to get Richie to look back, until he gives up on that and crosses the room to stand closer to Mike.

“Fucking tell him! If anyone would be able to make any kind of sense of this it’s Mike, you know it’s Mike!” He waves both hands around and if they weren’t ten feet apart, Richie’s entirely sure he’d hit him.

“Well, that helps.” Mike mutters as he steps to the ladder. 

“You fuckin’ coward.” Eddie accuses, points his finger in Richie’s face. “You’re such a fucking coward.” He’s got his fists clenched and his chest is puffing out sharply while he gasps breaths in. 

“Pot, kettle.” Richie hisses back, watching Mike’s back while he lowers himself down. 

“Rich, is Eddie still here?” He asks, like Eddie’s a free spirited ghost that haunts his every waking dream. But he’s still carefully blank in the way he watches Richie snap his head to Eddie with a brow raised. Eddie looks pained, like he’d had a plan and Richie wild carded him once again, just like usual. He wants to laugh, he wants to laugh so hard he cries, when Eddie forcibly looks away from him again. Just like usual, apparently. 

“Told you.” Eddie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Yeah, he’s still up my ass. Starting to think he’s obsessed with me.” He throws a cheeky wink to Eddie and gives a breathy sigh. Mike and Eddie’s scoff comes in unison. 

“Is he as frustrated with your shit as I am, because I’m about to make myself wake up to punch you, man.” 

“Thank you, Mike!” Eddie shouts. 

“You don’t have to get louder just because he can’t hear you, it’s not going to change anything!” Richie shouts back but Mike just sighs.

“So I think that’s him agreeing with me then?” Richie sets his jaw and shakes his head. “Listen, Richie, I know some shit too. All of us do, you’re just the only one who doesn’t talk about it.” 

“He’s reaching out to you.” Eddie says calmly. “Take him up on it, you sorry bastard.” 

“The turtle talked to you too?” Richie asks, widens his eyes when Mike narrows his. “Or, not? Look man, I don’t even know if I believe the cosmic turtle visited me and if it weren’t for Eddie I’d’ve already left.” 

“No, I didn’t get a visual on who was doing the talking. It took us a while to agree that it wasn’t Pennywise.” Mike steps towards Richie but all Richie sees is Eddie’s face behind his shoulder. He looks disappointed. No time to decipher that one right now but he can’t help but to needle a little bit, always having been the one to push Eddie to speak the most when he absolutely never wanted to. 

“Eddie, what do you know about the turtle man that we apparently don’t?” Eddie shoots him a sour look.

“That’s confidential.” It’s almost a whisper and he won’t look at Richie, won’t even look at Mike, as he watches the gas can with an entirely flat expression.

“C’mon, everyone’s been shitting on me for withholding stupid information and yet you’re allowed to get away with it? Thought we had to stick together, stronger together, or what the fuck ever?” 

“Don’t push, Rich. I’m on the outside for this one.” Richie can practically hear him grinding his molars together in his frustration and he _still won’t fucking look at him_. The anger swoops deep and red through him, makes him wobble on his feet and suck in a sharp breath. Eddie looks like he’s preparing for a storm.

“How is that fucking possible? How? When every fucking thing is literally about you?” Richie huffs a sardonic laugh and looks at Mike like he’d understand what Richie’s feeling now. But Mike can’t hear their conversation and looks as lost as he did once the ritual in the cavern fell apart. Richie burns, he melts, he twists his back and feels the tension roiling through his muscles.

“It’s fucking not! At least, not only me.” Eddie scrubs a hand over his face, still refusing to look at Richie despite his shoulders growing more tense by the second. “It’s you-”

“If I’m creating all of this-” Richie’s voice raises and he waves his hands in encompassing circles, “then how am I so sure that you’re not something my subconscious is cooking up to feed into my fears? How do I know you’re fucking _real_ , Eddie?”

“Because you’re _not_ creating it! You’re the fucking _doorway_ for it!” Eddie shouts, finally turning to face him again. He’s red in the face, like he usually gets when they get riled up, except he’s angry too, ready to spit fire and rip heads off. He’s beautiful, it’s staggering.

“Because of the deadlights, Richie.” Mike says it quietly, drowning under Eddie’s shout but still echoing around Richie’s ears. 

“What?!” Eddie and Richie both snap, but Mike only sees Richie’s visceral reaction and not Eddie’s suddenly pale face and clenching hands. 

“The deadlights, it gave you insider knowledge on It. Maybe without even knowing, no way for us to test the theory now since, y’know, the clown’s dead and only you and Bev have experience.” 

“No.” Richie says, calm and flat and void of all the emotion he just felt rushing through him seconds ago. 

“Rich-” Eddie starts but Richie shakes his head fast. Doesn’t look at him, even steps back when Eddie steps forward. 

“No.” 

“Bev mentioned that she knew more than just our deaths, remember? She saw some of Its history too, things the Shokopiwa people didn’t even know. Things I couldn’t find any shred of history on in books or mysteries from around the town.” 

“I remember everything from the deadlights.” Richie whispers, blinking down hot tears to keep them from spilling. “It was insightful, showed me the truth, but it wasn’t like that.” 

“I know, Rich.” Mike says softly, he holds no pity on his face when Richie glances at him though. He doesn’t look as gutted as Richie feels. “I know you don’t want to talk about it-”

“What happened in the deadlights?” Eddie asks over Mike, gaze clear and cutting as his eyes trace over Richie entirely. 

But Richie can’t bring himself to answer, giving a feeble shrug and suddenly he’s the one who can’t look at Eddie. He can’t take in the way he’s being sized up, can’t stand to think about the fact that Eddie’s eyes on him feels like an actual embrace or the fact that admitting to seeing what actually happened moments before it could happen keeps him awake every night. Mike’s petered off on whatever he was trying to say and Richie feels guilty for blanking out like this, but knowing none of this is happening and only having a vague remembrance of it in the morning isn’t inspiring him with words. 

It’s the longest he’s been able to maintain any kind of contact with Eddie so far and he can’t even enjoy it. He’s ashamed and guilty, throat tight and jaw locked as though even if the words were there he still couldn’t speak them. He’s found his cliff, toeing the edge of it and breathing harshly before the jump. If he’s going to talk about the deadlights it’s not going to be to Eddie, not like this, maybe not ever. 

Eddie realizes this. Richie watches it dawn on his face, the sudden knowing that Richie isn’t going to share anything with Eddie. Maybe he was right when he said he was outside of this, maybe Eddie wasn’t supposed to be involved at all. Maybe Eddie wasn’t supposed to come back but Richie opened the door anyways for his own selfish needs. It doesn’t matter if Eddie doesn’t love him the way he so desperately wants him to, if he’s alive then Richie will give anything to keep it that way. Eddie’s not mad, at least not outwardly so, maybe dejected and disappointed but not foaming at the mouth over Richie’s insubordination. 

There’s a howl in the distance of the barn that makes the sweat on his back freeze. It’s familiar but not friendly, sounds ragged and bloodthirsty and gives the three of them pause. Mike tilts his head back on his neck, pushes his right ear up to hear it better while throwing Richie a quizzical look. 

“Ah, so, the werewolf is real then.” Mike sighs. Eddie turns and gives Mike the blandest look Richie thinks he’s ever seen cross his face, it’s so shockingly Eddie in this moment of fear that it makes him wheeze out a pained laugh. 

“How the fuck do _you_ know about the werewolf?” Richie says instead of allowing his lungs to help form an actual laugh.

“Stan mentioned it.” Mike shrugs. “In passing, it wasn’t like a focus point. I’ve heard it in a few of the shared nightmares from before but never knew if it was a thing.”

“Stan’s got a big fucking mouth.” Richie mutters, swiping a hand over his face. Eddie steps closer to him, watches Richie blink at him before frowning firmly and turning to Mike on his heels.

“Do you guys just collectively get together to talk about Richie’s issues or?” Eddie snarks, rolls his eyes when Mike literally doesn’t hear him and watches Richie stalk forward towards the barn doors. 

The sounds outside the barn’s doors grow closer, Mike has a calculating look on his face but Richie wholeheartedly just wishes he could get them out of there before he knows what’s lurking makes its way in. In one second he’s trying to think of a battle plan and in the next he’s blinking awake on the hardwood of his old living room, staring right at the ceiling with the last howl echoing in his ears. He notices that he’s alone, pre-dawn light spilling into the living room with grace and setting everything hazy looking. It’s the still-like calm before the storm, the air feels light but steadily growing more stagnant as he wakes fully. Mike’s missing, not even his shoes are left where he’d taken them off last night. 

It’s quiet except for a motor roaring a few streets away and the sound sends chills up his spine as he tries to place just where he’s heard it before. He jumps to his feet, socks sliding across the floor as he races to the front door. It’s wrong, everything is wrong. The house across the street is actually the one from three blocks down, like a badly remembered memory and everything is misplaced. Maybe Richie is just misplaced? He can’t figure out what the fuck is going on. As he skids to a stop near the end of the walkway where the sidewalk rises up to meet the house he notices he’s not alone outside. Usually this hour is only for the people who’s grind never stops, the ones up before dawn to make it to their lifeless jobs on time. Heather’s standing at the end of her walkway, chin sticking out forward with her eyes settled on the road, but she looks absent and he doesn’t know what worries him more. He glances around the misplaced neighborhood, sees just how many people are standing along the street. The roaring motor turns onto his street, he sees a few people near the intersecting streets actually get hit by the car and he instinctively steps back. 

The thunderbird that blows past him has a black mannequin tied to the back bumper, dragging along the blacktop, with a Hanlon Farms logo stamped across each of its limbs. Henry and Belch are hollering from the front seats and, as they pass, Hocksetter throws his cherried cigarette butt right at Richie with a wink. He makes it a half step before puking in the rose bush by the mailbox.


End file.
